By Any Means Necessary
by Dragon Star Empress
Summary: Starscream is determined to do whatever he can to give the last surviving sparkling a chance to survive no matter how crazy or slim that chance may be.
1. Chapter 1

A kind of crazy idea that came to me in a dream after seeing Revenge of the Fallen.

* * *

Starscream watched helplessly as another sparkling became weaker, it's spark slowly fading. He let out a frustrated growl as it's spark finally went out completely.

"With the lose of the Allspark and the Fallen's knowledge of how to restore it our entire race will become extinct and all Megatron cares about is destroying Optimus Prime." he said angrily as he turned away from the lifeless sparkling.

"Would it really do any good if Megatron was here? What difference could it possibly make?" Thundercracker asked.

"Megatron has almost half our forces on earth fighting the Autobots, the other half is dead or out of communication range. As long as the Autobots aren't initiating any attacks against us we should be putting all of our resources into finding new sources of energon to keep the sparklings alive." Starscream replied, walking over to look at the last remaining sparkling.

"You don't even know if having more energon will keep the sparklings alive, no one has ever tried growing them like this, at least not through the entire basic development stage. Maybe the only way to keep sparklings alive is with the Allspark or to have a femme carry them, this whole experiment could have just been a waste of time." Thundercracker said.

"Then maybe we'll just have to find a femme to carry the last sparkling." Starscream replied.

"Sure and where are you going to come up with a femme willing to do that? There aren't any Decepticon femmes left and I don't think any of the Autobot femmes would be all that thrilled to help bring another Decepticon into being, especially a clone of you, one of our most skilled fighters." Thundercracker pointed out.

"Who said anything about a willing femme? We'll kidnap one of the Autobot femmes and keep her here until the sparkling is born." Starscream replied.

"You do realize the Autobots won't take that too well, they would hunt us down and kill us for kidnapping one of them." Thundercracker said.

"Well then it's a good thing they don't have a clue where our base is, we'll just have to disable the femmes communication abilities before we bring her back here. If Optimus Prime is stupid enough to send the few remaining femmes into battle when they're the only way he knows of that we can create new sparklings and no one has questioned that decision then they're all fools or have given up any hope of being able to produce enough sparklings to continue our race. I refuse to give up so easily." Starscream told him.

"What's the point of even trying to get this to work, if we're going to have to use Cybertronian femmes anyways and we already know there aren't enough of them left to sustain our numbers naturally, what good does kidnapping one do?" Thundercracker asked.

"It will keep this sparkling alive while I try to find a way to keep them alive without the use of femmes. I refuse to allow this sparkling to die as long as there is anything I can do to try to keep it alive." Starscream replied.

"Alright, I'll help you, but do you really think the sparkling will survive long enough? It's such a sickly looking little thing." Thundercracker asked walking over to look at it. "You sure this is your clone and not Scalpel's? It's so small, even for a sparkling."

"The energon line was twisted so it didn't get as much as the other sparklings, unfortunately I didn't find out until I noticed how much smaller it was than the others. It's internal systems developed at the same rate as the other sparklings, but it didn't have enough energon to grow in size as well. In the end it may actually have worked to its advantage as it seems to be able to survive with less energon than the larger sparklings needed which is why it's still alive. Now that our energon sources are completely depleted even it won't survive long which is why we need to move quickly if we're going to keep it alive." Starscream said.

"So when do we go after the femme?" Thundercracker asked.

"Right now, with the energon gone if we don't get the sparkling into a femme with in the next few earth hours it'll die before the necessary connections to provide it with energy are formed." Starscream told him as he very carefully transferred the sparkling to a smaller glass pod then placed it securely in his cockpit. "Half the Autobot forces were fighting Megatron in the eastern United States yesterday and we know their base is somewhere in the south west. None of the reports we've received mentioned the femmes being in the battle which must mean they're watching the base. All we have to do is have you attack a few humans and they'll come out to stop us then you will keep them distracted from the air while I sneak in and kidnap one of the femmes before the others even realize I'm there. Once I have her far enough away I'll place the sparkling and disable her communications system."

"Shouldn't you disable the communications system first, so she can't call for help?" Thundercracker asked.

"It's a delicate process I wouldn't want to cause any real damage that could divert energy away from the sparkling to healing the damage, with the limited time the sparkling will survive it's too much of a risk to let the femme sustain any unnecessary injuries." Starscream explained.

"Alright, one more question though. What happened to taking over the Decepticons and getting rid of Megatron? You haven't given up after all this time have you?" Thundercracker asked.

"Of course not, but what point is there in leading an army that will eventually die off without new recruits? Anyways who would you rather have leading you a bot who only cares about killing and gaining power or one who will ensure the survival of our race and that there will be enough soldiers to defeat the enemy? If I can successfully ensure the survival of our race others will be more likely to follow me. I may not even have to kill Megatron myself if enough Decepticons decide I would make a better leader." Starscream explained.

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An hour later Thundercracker began firing missiles up and down a stretch of road near some cliffs that would provide the Autobots with good cover from one direction, but would also require them to split up and leave their backs exposed.

As Starscream had predicted several Autobots showed up, taking cover in the cliffs and started firing at Thundercracker who stayed to the far side of the cliffs firing back at them and keeping them distracted.

Once the Autobots were spread throughout the cliffs Starscream dropped down from above the clouds he had been hiding in and swooped in as quickly and silently as possible. His plan couldn't have worked more perfectly, Chromia was at the highest point of the cliffs, making her an easy target as Starscream flew in and snatched her before she or any of the other Autobots had time to realize what was happening.

"Let me go you pit spawned Deceptiscum!" Chromia yelled struggling as Starscream flew off with her.

"Do you really think I would go through the trouble of capturing you and then just release you because you want me to? Surely even an Autobot isn't that stupid." Starscream replied.

Chromia didn't reply, she relaxed a bit and then suddenly twisted, managing to get one arm free and drove a small blade between the armor on Starscream's arm.

Starscream screeched in pain, instinctively pulling his arm away and lost his grip on Chromia and she struggled out of his other arm.

As she started to fall Chromia grabbed Starscream's foot and swung herself up on to his back. Grabbing the edges of his wings she shifted her weight forcing him to go off course.

"Get off of my back you annoying femme, you're going to make us crash!" Starscream shouted.

"Do you really think I would go through the trouble of getting up here and then just get off because you want me too? Then again it wouldn't surprise me if a Decepticon was stupid enough to think I would." Chromia replied sarcastically.

Starscream let out a low growl, but decided to let Chromia think she was in complete control, as long as they were heading away from the other Autobots it didn't really matter.

A short while later Starscream suddenly shot towards the ground.

"What are you doing? You're going to kill us!" Chromia screamed.

Starscream pulled up a little at the last second and pulled off a perfect landing despite the extra weight on his back. As soon as his feet touched the ground Chromia tried to run, but Starscream quickly caught her.

"You're not going anywhere." Starscream told her.

Chromia grinned at him a split second before a yellow blur shot over a near by hill and slammed into him.

As Starscream quickly got back to his feet he glared at Bumblebee, "Well look who's here, have you decided to take on mechs your own size instead of murdering innocent sparklings now?" he asked.

"What are talking about?" Bumblebee demanded as he and Starscream slowly circled each other.

"Oh don't sound so confused, when Soundwave hacked into the governments records he found out all about the second Allspark shard and the sparklings it created and that you murdered them. Did you even try communicating with them or did you just go in guns blazing and murder them all? Even the Decepticons have sworn not to kill any more sparklings for the sake of trying to keep our race alive and yet you who claim to be an Autobot, the faction that supposedly respects and protects all sentient life, murdered innocent sparklings. They were probably terrified, confused and only trying to defend them selves from what they viewed as possible threats to their lives. The site of one of their own kind should have been a comfort to them and instead of calming and comforting them you murdered them." Starscream said, smirking slightly when he saw a look of guilt cross Bumblebee's face before it was replaced by anger.

"I had to protect the humans!" Bumblebee said as he lunged at Starscream.

"Of course you did, because you value the lives of the fleshlings more than the lives of innocent sparklings." Starscream easily dodged the attack, bots like Ironhide might be dangerous when in a state of blind rage, but Bumblebee didn't have the experience to control himself that well and every time Starscream sidestepped, dodged or blocked an attack Bumblebee just became angrier.

Noticing that Chromia was trying to sneak away Starscream swiftly ended the battle by pinning Bumblebee down and firing a powerful shot through his leg at point blank range leaving it nearly severed and completely paralyzed from the knee down.

"Now if you're done making a fool of yourself I have better things to do than waste my time with a bot who's only real skill is murdering sparklings." Starscream said as he dodged several blasts from Bumblebee's canons as he headed over the hill where Bumblebee had come from and where Chromia had been heading.

As he crested the hill he was met by two large canons, one very angry Ironhide along with Optimus, Ratchet and Sideswipe who were all supposed to be off fighting Megatron. They all looked rather badly beaten, but still five to one didn't seem like good odds.

"No body messes with my girlfriend and lives." Ironhide said, his canons starting to glow.

Having no other choice Starscream took off into the air and headed back to where Thundercracker was still distracting the other Autobots. He let out a pained screech as Ironhide fired at him and managed to hit his leg before he could get out of range.

As soon as he was out of firing range he commed Thundercracker and told him to retreat.

"Since when do you retreat from a battle so quickly?" Thundercracker asked as he flew up next to Starscream.

"Since it puts the sparklings life in danger." Starscream replied.

"At least we could have tried to take out a few Autobots, it's not like the sparkling will survive without a femme anyways." Thundercracker said.

"I won't sit around and just watch another sparkli-" Starscream stopped as they flew over an old farm house. Scanning the area and not finding any sign of other humans in the area he turned and flew back towards the house.

"What are you doing?" Thundercracker asked.

"Something so crazy and impossible it's probably a waste of time to even try, but if I don't do something now the sparkling won't survive and a slim almost impossible chance of it surviving is better than not doing anything and knowing it will die for sure." Starscream replied as he landed behind a section of thick trees that grew in the middle of the large driveway. "Stay up there and keep an eye out for any other humans or Autobots." Starscream told him over the com link as he waited silently.


	2. Chapter 2

Eva smiled as she stepped out the door to get the rest of the groceries she had just bought. Taking a deep breath of the clean country air her smiled widened as she picked up a kitten that was sitting next to the door. "One year today, one full year and everyone said I wouldn't last a month running the farm on my own. This certainly calls for a celebration, treats for everyone and cake and ice cream for me. And maybe a picnic in the cemetery with Great, Great grandma and grandpa, it's a perfect day for it." she said happily cradling the kitten in her arms and letting it play with her long brown hair as she carried it over to where the rest of it's siblings were playing. "Now, you stay out from under foot while I'm carrying the groceries in." she told it, as she set it down.

After stopping to pet each of the kittens she walked back to her car and had just started to pull out more groceries. One of the older cats that had been walking across the driveway suddenly froze and started hissing and growling. Eva looked up just in time to see the cat with it's back arched and tail fluffed up hiss one last time at something before it raced off in the opposite direction. Grabbing a long stick that was leaning up against a small building that sat next to the driveway Eva headed towards the trees. "Spot if that's you I'm going to call the dog catcher!" she called angrily, assuming it was the dog from another farm that often harassed her cats.

Before she had time to realize what was happening a huge robot had stepped out from behind the trees, knocked her to the ground and pinned her there with one large hand. She cried out in shock, but didn't scream or even make a sound after that, she new perfectly well there was no one close enough to hear her screams.

"Wh- what do you want?" she demanded trying to keep the fear out of her voice, but failing miserably.

"You'll find out soon enough." the robot replied reaching over and grabbing a couple of old tires from beside a barn and placing them under the edges of his hand then pressing down a little more to make sure they provided enough support to prevent him from crushing her while still keeping her firmly pinned down then positioned his fingers so her stomach was left exposed.

Eva struggled, trying to wriggle her way out from under his hand, but wasn't able to move at all.

"Stop trying to get away, it's no use." he told her as he opened the cockpit on his chest and carefully took out a glass pod and set it gently on the ground then braced his other hand against the ground to help support his weight.

The robot's glowing red eyes suddenly dimmed and a second later a perfect replica appeared standing next to Eva only he was no bigger than a human now.

"What are you doing?" Eve demanded as he knelt down next to her.

"Either wasting my time or finding a way to ensure the survival of my race." he replied as his hand retracted and was replaced by a very sharp looking blade. "Now, I would advise you to hold very still I have no desire to cause you any more damage than necessary."

Eva struggled a moment longer as he pulled her shirt up, "Hold still." he commanded.

"Please, don't do this." Eva begged as he brought the blade closer to her.

His only reply was to suddenly cut into her stomach.

Eva screamed, turning her face to the side to avoid watching as she was cut open. The last thing she saw was the glass pod with a small robot no bigger than her fist, a bright blue light slowly pulsing in its chest then everything went black as the pain overwhelmed her and she mercifully lost consciousness.

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"Tell me you're not doing what it looks like you're doing." Thundercracker said as he flew in low over where Starscream was.

"If you have a better idea to keep give the sparkling some chance of surviving please share it with me, because I've run out of options." Starscream replied.

"No, I don't have any other ideas, but a human? What type of chance is there of the sparkling surviving in something organic?" Thundercracker asked.

"Ninety-nine point nine percent chance that it will die, but that's better than doing nothing and having a hundred percent chance of it dieing." Starscream replied, "If it does work though our race can be saved, we would have no problem finding enough humans to carry sparklings."

"How do you even know where to put the sparkling with all that internal stuff and blood everywhere?" Thundercracker asked.

"The internet, the one useful thing humans have managed to create. Now get up higher and keep an eye out and quit bothering me." Starscream told him.

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Eva woke up and moaned, it felt as if someone had slugged her in the stomach. Opening her eyes she sat up and hesitantly pulled her shirt up to find a long scar across her stomach along with some busing. "How long have I been out if it's already healed that much?" she said to herself shocked by how well healed it was.

"About two hours." a voice said from behind her.

Eva jumped and turned to find the robot standing behind her and another one standing off to one side. "How can I be this well healed after what you did to me and what did you do to me?" She asked as she tried to stand up while looking around for some way to escape.

She managed to get to her feet, but her legs gave out as soon as she did. With incredible speed the robot caught her before she could hit the floor, it's large hand curling around her. "Be careful, you lost too much blood to be moving, I don't want that sparkling injured because you're to stupid to stay still." he said.

Eva reluctantly sat back down, "You still haven't answered my questions and what the heck is a sparkling?" she demanded angrily although she had a sinking feeling she already had a pretty good idea what was going on after what she had seen before passing out.

"You will not speak to me in that tone of voice!" he replied angrily.

"Fine then I'll just leave and won't speak to you at all." Eva said as she started to try to get up again.

"I told you not to try to get up, you could hurt the sparkling if you fall." he said sounding frustrated.

Eva crossed her arms and glared up at him, trying not to let think to much about the fact that he could easily crush her with one foot, "Then tell me what you did to me."

He glared at her, but really had no choice but to put up with her attitude, he couldn't risk any harm coming to the sparkling. "You healed so quickly because I used nanites to repair your damage as well as alter your body to carry the sparkling. A sparkling is similar to a human baby. In this case it hasn't fully developed and required a female to carry it, I was unable to acquire a female of my own kind to carry it so rather than letting it die I decided to use a human." he explained.

Feeling a small sense of victory at the realization that to some extent she could control the robot by doing anything that might put the sparkling in danger she decided she might as well find out as much as possible. Even if it annoyed him, if he was worried that her falling could hurt the sparkling she doubted he would do anything to hurt or kill her for being annoying and if she didn't keep talking she knew she would totally breakdown and freak out over what was happening to her. "How is this even possible? I'm human you're a robot, how can it even be possible for my body to keep something mechanical alive?"

"It shouldn't be, but humans are the only beings even remotely similar to my kind on this planet. Your bodies may be organic but in basic function are similar and your minds are primitive, but at least sentient." he told her.

"How long will it take before this thing is born?" Eva asked.

"Due to some complications during it's early development I'm not entirely sure, but I would guess about six or seven months." he replied.

"What's going to happen to me?" Eva asked.

"If you and the sparkling survive you'll be the first of a collection of humans that will be taken to carry sparklings. If the sparkling dies you will be killed, I can't risk you running off and telling the Autobots what I'm trying to accomplish." he told her, "Now you will stay here with Thundercracker until I return." he said indicating the other robot.

"So do you have a name? Mine is Eva." she said.

"It's Starscream." he replied before taking off and transforming into a jet as he flew through a large hole in the roof of the abandoned warehouse they were in.


	3. Chapter 3

When Starscream returned to the base Megatron and the other Decepticons were already there. Bracing himself to deal with a no doubt angry Megatron he walked in.

Before he could say anything Megatron had grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall.

"I told you to watch the base, where have you been and where is Thundercracker?" Megatron demanded angrily.

"The last sparkling was dieing, I had to do something to keep it alive." Starscream managed to choke out.

"I don't care about your stupid little sparklings, I gave you an order and you were to have obeyed that order." Megatron told him as he threw him to the ground.

"But lord Megatron the estimates of how many Autobots have survived indicate that we are out numbered five to one if they all come to earth and with the humans help they are killing our soldiers faster than we can kill them. If we don't find a way to create sparklings our army will be destroyed before we have any chance of defeating the Autobots and our entire race will die out. If we can find a way to keep the sparklings alive we can grow an army a hundred times larger than that of the Autobots and defeat them before they even know we've discovered a way to grow the sparklings." Starscream said kneeling in front of Megatron.

"He speaks the truth, the Autobots may be spread across the universe, but our numbers are drastically less than those of the Autobots, chances of defeating the Autobots without new reinforcements is nearly impossible." Soundwave said.

Megatron looked up sharply at Soundwave obviously just as shocked that he was agreeing with Starscream as Starscream was.

"Fine, you may continue you're attempts to keep the sparklings alive." Megatron said then suddenly back handed Starscream hard enough to knock him to the ground, "But if you ever do anything without my permission again I will make you regret it."

"Yes lord Megatron." Starscream replied as he got up.

"Did you manage to keep the sparkling alive?" Megatron asked not really sounding interested.

"It's not possible to tell if it will survive yet, but it was still alive and seemed to be doing well when I left." Starscream replied.

"Where did you leave it and why didn't you bring it back here?" Megatron demanded.

"The only possible way to keep it alive without more energon was to place it in a femme to be carried. I was unable to capture one of the Autobot femmes so as a last resort I used a human which could not survive here." Starscream explained.

"That's disgusting, it better not have been my clone that you stuck in some gross little human." one Decepticon said.

"I can't believe you would use a human." Megatron said making no attempt to hide his disgust and disapproval.

"It may not be the most appealing way of keeping the sparkling alive, but if it does survive we'll be able to ensure the survival of our race. We could clone as many new Decepticons as we want if we can use human women to carry them. Then once our forces vastly outnumber the Autobots we can defeat them easily without them ever realizing how many of us there are." Starscream told him.

"Starscream you're an idiot, do you really think Prime wouldn't become suspicious as to why we're taking human women and do everything in his power to stop us and protect the humans once he finds out?" Megatron asked.

"If we do this carefully the Autobots won't have any idea what we're doing until it's too late." Starscream replied.

"You think we could take the hundreds of women it would take to grow a large enough army to crush the Autobots without them noticing that we're taking them?" Megatron demanded.

"If we do it right, absolutely. The humans own behavior will make it easy to take them without being noticed. There are billions of humans around the earth, and they kidnap and murder each other so often that if we spread out where we get them from, taking only one or two from each country maybe more from the larger countries and use our holoforms to kidnap them no one will think it's anything more than a common occurrence of one human kidnapping another." Starscream replied, smirking when Megatron couldn't come up with any other argument against his plan.

"Fine, you may continue this experiment, but you're responsible for taking care of the human, if you require Thundercracker's help fine, but I won't have any of my other soldiers being taken away from battle for something that probably won't work anyways." Megatron told him.

"Yes sir." Starscream replied before leaving.

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Once Starscream had left Thundercracker had simply sat down leaning against one of the walls and seemed to be pretty much ignoring Eva until she tried to stand up and he had told her not to.

She had then just sat there looking around the warehouse trying to figure out some way of escaping once she had regained some strength. Her heart dropped and her stomach turned as she realized even if she could escape she would still have some type of alien growing inside of her, one that from what she had been told would most likely kill her. She suddenly felt like she had been dragged into some sci-fi horror movie. Maybe she would wake up and find out it had all just been a horrible nightmare, but she had little hope of that and finally curled up and cried herself to sleep.

---------------------------------------------

It was well after dark by the time Starscream returned to the warehouse.

"Where have you been? I thought you were coming right back, did it really take that long to deal with Megatron?" Thundercracker asked.

"It's not exactly a short flight to the base and I had to get food for the human." Starscream replied.

"How long could it possibly take to rip the roof off of one of their stores and grab what you want?" Thundercracker asked.

"We don't want the Autobots finding out what we're doing and stealing human food would look suspicious. I had to use my holoform, steal money from a couple of humans and then actually go into one of their stores to get the food." Starscream replied, "How has the human been doing?"

"Well it tried to get up, but I told it not to and then it just sat there for a while, started crying and then fell asleep." Thundercracker told him.

"At least it's still alive and the sparkling seems to be alright, the nanites have made all the necessary connections to the humans body now all we can do is wait and see if the human can provide enough energy to keep the sparkling alive and if it can absorb and use it." Starscream said as he walked over to Eva and gently nudged her shoulder with one finger.

Eva glanced over her shoulder, then quickly sat up and backed a few feet away from Starscream, her heart pounding. It was going to take a while to get use to waking up to giant robots. "What do you want?" she demanded trying to keep her voice from quivering.

"You're week from the blood you lost, you need to eat." he replied setting a couple of bags of food next to her.

For a moment she thought about refusing to eat, maybe if she didn't eat it would kill the thing growing inside of her, but if it died then she would be killed. She would have to regain enough strength to escape first and then worry about getting rid of the thing. "What did you do, raid a health food store?" she asked as she looked at the food in the bags.

"This is all food that according to the internet is best for a pregnant human to eat." he replied.

"Well I'm not a normal pregnant human am I? I'm just a human who's had an ugly, parasitic little monster stuck into her." Eva said.

"Shut up and eat!" Starscream commanded, his hands balling into fists.

Realizing that insulting the sparkling made him mad and yet he it didn't seem like he would do anything to hurt her because of it she decided to see just how far she could push him, it wasn't like she had much to lose, if she was probably going to die one way or another anyways. "Why should I, if it's going to grow up to be even half as ugly as you are it would be kinder to just starve myself and let the thing die before it ever has to suffer looking in a mirror." she said.

All of a sudden Starscream's fist came down hard shattering the cement floor only a few feet away from Eva and making her flinch, "Just remember this human, if the sparkling dies I will kill you and I guarantee it will be a slow painful death." Starscream told her before storming off to the other side of the warehouse.

Now completely sure that as long as the sparkling was alive she wouldn't be hurt no mater what she did or said Eva pulled out some of the food and ate while entertaining herself by thinking of every insult she could come up with for Starscream or the sparkling. Once she finished eating she curled up and fell back to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Eva moaned as she woke up and tried to move, sleeping on the cement floor of the warehouse with only a couple of blankets had left her extremely sore. Sitting up and stretching her back as well as she could Eva glanced around the warehouse and noticed Thundercracker standing near one of the large doors.

Slowly getting up and stretching she decided she had nothing better to do so she forced down what little fear they still caused and walked over towards him.

"What do you think you're doing up? You are not to be up walking around without Starscream's permission." he told when he noticed her.

Eva glared up at him, "Well I don't see him around and I need to stretch, if you don't like it, shoot me!" she said defiantly.

"Shouldn't you be afraid of me?" Thundercracker asked sounding a little shocked and irritated by her attitude.

"Well lets see, it's already been made quite clear to me that there's a good chance I won't survive carrying the monster that's inside of and if I do survive then I'll be imprisoned for the rest of my life. I'm going to either die or have a life worse than death to look forward to, why should I be afraid of you? The worse you can do to me is kill me and at least if you do then I don't have to suffer any longer and it'll ensure that one less of your kind comes into the world." Eva replied.

"I could easily break a few of your bones without killing you." he replied.

"Sure and put that extra stress on my body and risk killing the little monster? I highly doubt you would do that." Eva replied with more confidence than she felt.

Before Thundercracker could reply Starscream walked back into the warehouse. "What is she doing up? I told you not to let it be up and moving around while I was gone." Starscream demanded.

"You try controlling it when it's not half conscious from blood loss and then, if you do any better you can complain." Thundercracker replied.

Starscream looked down at Eva, "Get back over to your bed and stay there until I tell you to move." he ordered.

"Make me." she replied defiantly walking in the opposite direction and sitting down on some crates.

Starscream stood there rather shocked for a moment, "I said get over there now!" he ordered angrily.

"Go jump in a trash compactor." she replied before turning her back to him.

"_She knows we won't hurt her as long as the sparkling is alive and seems to have no fear of us_." Thundercracker told Starscream over their comlink.

"_Why couldn't it have been a normal human that would have cowered in fear and obeyed without question_?" Starscream asked.

"_Because that would have made it too easy and Primus must hate you for some reason_." Thundercracker replied then out loud asked, "Did you find a better place to keep the human?"

"Why don't you just let me go home, it would be less stressful on me and there for better for the little monster." Eva suggested.

"And risk you running away and telling the Autobots what I'm trying to do? I don't think so." Starscream replied, "I've found an abandoned house in a large forest north of here, it's remote enough if she tries to escape she won't survive long enough to get anywhere she can contact other humans. We will need to pick up more supplies to take care of her though." he told Thundercracker.

"We could always go back to my house for supplies, I doubt anyone has noticed I'm missing yet." Eva said, hoping that if she could get back to her house she could at least find a way to let someone know what had happened to her.

"And I'm sure you could try to contact someone and let them know what's going on while we're there." Starscream said.

"I can put out a jamming signal so she can't use the phone or internet or anything to communicate with anyone. It would be easier than having to steal everything we need for her or stealing the money from humans and then having to buy the stuff." Thundercracker said.

"Fine, as long as there's no sign of other humans in the area." Starscream said then reached over and gently picked Eva up.

"What do you think you're doing? Put me down!" Eva demanded.

"We're leaving, now shut up and stay still." he told her as the cockpit on his chest opened and he put her into the seat, the belts belting her in securely before he moved his hand away and the cockpit closed.

Eva kicked the glass of the cockpit then gasped as the seat or more correctly the rest of his body shifted while the seat stayed so that she was still sitting upright as his body transformed into a jet before taking off through the hole in the ceiling.

--

A while later they circled over Eva's house a few times before Starscream landed behind one of the barns, the cockpit opened and the belts released Eva.

As she began to try to climb out by herself a hand grabbed her's, "Let me help you, I don't need you falling and killing the sparkling." Starscream said.

"How do you do that?" Eva asked as she reluctantly let him help her down.

"It's called a holoform, and far to advanced for a human to understand. Now hurry up." he said half leading and half dragging her towards the house.

"What do you need from here?" Starscream asked her as they stepped into the house.

Eva stepped into the garage then handed him a couple of empty boxes, "Why don't you box up all the food in the kitchen while I go pack my clothes." she suggested as she grabbed a couple of burritos out of the fridge and threw them in the microwave.

"Fine, just don't forget, Thundercracker is blocking all communication signals and if you try to escape he'll see you." Starscream told her.

"I know." she replied angrily then after grabbing the burritos headed up to her room.

Once she was in her room she grabbed her largest suitcase out of the closet and quickly tossed all of her clothes that she could into it then walked over to her nightstand and grabbed a pen and paper. She quickly wrote _kidnapped, Decepticons, taking me north somewhere, contact Autobots, Starscream, Thundercracker, sparkling, trying to grow it-. _Eva quickly stuck the note under her alarm clock when she heard someone coming up the stairs and hoped that it would be enough to let someone know what was going on, if anyone found it. She quickly grabbed a small pocket knife off of the night stand, and stuck it into her bra, if she did survive carrying the little alien monster and wasn't rescued she would kill herself before she spent the rest of her life as a prisoner. She then walked over to the closet and pulled out another suitcase as Starscream stepped into the room.

"How long is this going to take you?" he asked impatiently.

"Well I don't exactly know where you're taking me so I have to pack everything I might need, plus I'm trying to eat while I pack since you didn't exactly give me time to eat anything before we left." she replied taking another bite of her food before she started stuffing her pillow and blankets into the suitcase then grabbed another suitcase and headed into the bathroom.

When she came back out Starscream was just returning from taking the first two suitcases downstairs. "So, this place in the middle of a forest that you're taking me to, does it have electricity? She asked.

"I don't know, I didn't check." Starscream replied.

"Well you're real helpful." she replied shoving the suitcase into his arms before grabbing her iPod and it's speakers and heading downstairs.

Once downstairs she grabbed another box and put her laptop and a huge pile of DVDs into it then filled another box with books.

"Do you really need all of this?" Starscream asked.

"Only if you don't want me to get bored, but if you don't mind me having nothing better to do than think of new ways to describe how unbelievably ugly you are then you can just leave those last two boxes here." she replied as she walked out of the room trying not to smile when he started to carry the boxes out to where he had set the others.

Once she was sure they had grabbed everything she might need or want Thundercracker landed and Starscream loaded as much of the stuff as he could fit into his cockpit. "Why do I have to carry all of this stuff?" Thundercracker asked.

"Because I have to transport the pain in the aft human, unless you would rather deal with her." Starscream said.

"Hey bird brain, if there isn't a decent bed where you're taking me, grab the bed out of the spare bedroom, I can't possibly sleep on the floor again, it hurts me and if I'm in pain it causes me stress which isn't good for a pregnant woman." Eva said walking up next to his foot.

"Did she just call you bird brain?" Thundercracker asked.

"Well it works doesn't it? His face kind of reminds me of a bird of pray. Okay I've never seen any bird that ugly, but in some deformed way it does, so bird brain works." she said ignoring the irritated growl from Starscream as she walked away.

"I'm perfectly fine with being the luggage carrier, load me up. I'll even make the second trip if we have to

bring the bed." Thundercracker told Starscream.


	5. Chapter 5

Once Thundercracker had everything he could carry Starscream helped Eva back into his cockpit and they took off.

The farther they flew the more remote the area below them became, small towns and farm land changing to thick forests with fewer and fewer roads.

"Hey bird brain, I think you should land for a while." Eva said after a while.

"Why on earth would I do that? And stop calling me bird brain, my name is Starscream." he told her.

"I don't feel so good, I think I need to get out of here for a while." she told him.

"We'll be there in few minutes, you can get out then." Starscream replied.

"I really think I need to get out now." she said.

"Well too ba-" he stopped suddenly as something warm and slimy hit his control panel. "Why you disgusting little insect, how dare you-"

"Oh shut up, I tried to warn you and if you don't land now and get me out of here the smell is going to make me throw up again." she told him.

Starscream reluctantly but quickly landed and opened the cockpit. Eva climbed out onto his wing before he could activate his holoform, once he activated it he helped her down then transformed.

After a moment of staring disgustedly at his chest he shut his cockpit and said "Come here." as he leaned down to grab Eva.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he began to walk holding her in one hand while using the other to make sure no tree branches hit her.

"We're walking the rest of the way, it's not far, I have no way of getting that stuff out of my cockpit here and I certainly don't want anymore of it on me. You humans are disgusting creatures." he told her.

-----------

After a few minutes of walking Eva could see a lake through the trees, "Is the house near that lake?" she asked trying to keep her mind off of her stomach.

"Yes, the house sits back in the trees at the edge of it." he replied.

"Um, how about we take a break." Eva suggested as she began to feel like she was going to throw up again.

"We're almost there, why would we stop now." Starscream asked as he continued to walk.

Eva turned to glare at him then moved to the side of his hand closest to his chest, "I don't think it was the flying that made m-" she stopped suddenly as the rest of her breakfast suddenly hit Starscream's chest, after a few dry heaves she looked up and couldn't help feeling a sense of satisfaction as he had suddenly let out a startled yelp and held her out away from his body as the stuff dripped down through the openings in his armor and into the exposed wires.

"You did that on purpose!" Starscream accused angrily.

"I asked you to stop." Eva replied simply.

"You could have done that off the other side of my hand instead of down my chest." he said.

Eva grinned evilly up at him, "What fun would that have been, if I'm going to throw up I might as well get some entertainment out of it."

"I hate humans." Starscream muttered as he started walking again.

"I can assure you the feeling is mutual." Eva replied.

----

As soon as they stepped out of the trees Thundercracker walked over to them. "Take her to the house." Starscream said handing Eva to him.

"What is that smell?" Thundercracker asked.

"That's what happens when you don't put me down as soon as I ask you too. Isn't that right, bird brain?" Eva called cheerfully as she watched Starscream walk out into the lake.

"Just take that disgusting thing to the house, now!" Starscream called back sounding like he was about ready to kill someone.

"What exactly did you do to him?" Thundercracker asked quietly enough Starscream wouldn't be able to hear him.

"I threw up on him." Eva replied.

Thundercracker didn't respond for a moment and looked distracted. "Are you okay?" Eva asked.

After another second he started laughing quietly. "No wonder he's so upset. And yes I'm fine, I was looking up the meaning of throw up." he told her.

"Looking it up?" Eva asked.

"Yes we can link into your internet to get any information we might need about your kind." he explained as he set her down in front of a small cabin.

Eva walked in and grimaced at the condition of the place, there was a combination kitchen and living room, a bedroom and luckily a bathroom, all of the plumbing was hand pumps, but it was better than nothing. Everything had a thick coating of dust and cobwebs hung all over the place. There was a large fireplace with a large iron kettle hanging in it, an old iron cook stove, a large sink and a small section of counter with a couple of cupboards. "This is just going to be great." she said looking out at the sky through a hole in the ceiling.

As she stepped back out side Starscream was just walking towards the house, "Hey puke pit, if you expect me to stay in there you need to get a ton of cleaning supplies and get it cleaned out, because if the dust and crud in there doesn't kill me it'll at least make me sick."

"Puke pit?" Thundercracker asked.

"Yeah, he had a cock_pit _full of puke, puke pit. Anyways he did say to stop calling him bird brain." she replied.

"If that sparkling dies I am going to make sure you suffer the most unimaginably long and painful death possible." Starscream told her.

"Yeah, well until then you'd better get busy, puke pit." Eva said patting his foot with her hand before walking down to the edge of the lake.

"You know I bet she'd get along great with Skywarp, think he'll make it to earth anytime soon?" Thundercracker asked.

"I hope not, I don't need some human giving him any ideas. Keep an eye on her and try to figure out if she's sick, we don't need her throwing up again and if I have to find medicine for her it would be nice to know before I come back. I'm going to get the rest of the stuff." Starscream told Thundercracker before taking off.


	6. Chapter 6

Eva looked at her surroundings, a large crystal clear lake surrounded by lush forests and no noise aside from birds and insects, if it weren't for the cabin the area would have looked like it had never been touched by man. Even with the cabin it easily felt as if she had been transported back to a slower more peaceful time in history. All in all not a bad place to spend what ever little time she had left to live before the sparkling killed her or she killed herself if she wasn't rescued.

Glancing back towards the cabin she noticed Thundercracker staring at her, "What are you staring at?" she demanded.

"Starscream told me to run some scans on you and try to figure out what was making you sick." he replied walking a little closer to her.

"Probably flying right after eating, either that or morning sickness, considering the size of the little monster when he put it in me who knows how it'll effect the timing of normal symptoms of pregnancy." she replied then watched silently as he got the same distant look on his face as he had when he had been looking stuff up on the internet before.

A second later he took a couple of steps away from her, "Great, remind me to not let him convince me to watch you again as long as you might have this 'morning sickness'." he said sounding rather disgusted.

"Men are such wimps, even giant alien robot ones. Don't worry right now my stomach is quite empty." she replied.

"I'm not a wimp, I saw and smelled what you did to Starscream and I have no desire to end up having to clean that out of my wiring." Thundercracker replied.

-------

Once Starscream returned he and Thundercracker used their holoforms and cleaned out the cabin while Eva explored around part of the lake.

After walking about a forth of the way around the lake in one direction Eva headed back towards the cabin and stepped in to see how the cleaning was going, "Don't forget to clean out the chimney and the flue on the stove, I'll need heat and a way to cook food." she told them.

"We'll get to it before we're done." Starscream replied sounding a little irritated.

"Good, oh and make sure you get all of the mold cleaned up from the areas where the roof leaks, some types of mold can make humans very sick or even kill them." Eva added.

"We will." Starscream replied sounding even more irritated as he dumped a dust pan of dirt from the floors outside.

"And make sure you completely sanitize the stove and counter, there have obviously been birds and probably small rodents on them, who knows what type of diseases I could catch from using them if you don't get them clean enough. You'll also need to fix the roof, if it starts raining all of my stuff could be ruined and I could end up sick."

"I already have something to take care of that." Starscream replied sounding as if he was barely keeping his temper under control.

Eva took a second to make sure she wouldn't start grinning about her ability to drive him crazy when he really couldn't do much about it, before she continued, "You also need to make sure there aren't any spiders left in here, I wouldn't want to get bitten by anything poisonous."

Are you about finished!?" Starscream demanded angrily.

"Just one more thing." she replied.

"And what is that?" Starscream demanded.

"As long as you're doing all this cleaning why don't we run into town and see if we can find you a nice frilly apron to wear while you clean, maybe something in bright pink or maybe something with lots of lace and red hearts to match your eyes." she said.

"If you don't get out of here right now I'm going to-"

Eva stepped up within a few inches of his face, "Going to what? Kill me? Hurt me? Do something to cause me even more stress than I'm already dealing with? What exactly do you think you can do to me that wouldn't risk causing trouble with the little monster?" Eva asked before turning and starting to walk back outside as the handle of the broom that had been in Starscream's hand snapped in two as he glared after her. Once outside she sat down on the small porch and listened for a while.

"Starscream breath before you over heat. We're just going to have to learn to ignore her attempts to irritate us if we're going to get through this with our processors intact." Thundercracker said.

"She should be terrified of us, willing to do whatever we tell her just to ensure she stays alive, not trying to irritate us." Starscream said.

"Maybe, but if you were being held prisoner, had absolutely no way of escaping and knew without a doubt that your captors wouldn't hurt you no matter what you did, would you just sit around and be an obedient well behaved prisoner?" Thundercracker asked.

Starscream let out a frustrated growl then barely audibly replied, "No, I'd make sure they'd rather be rusting in the pit than keep me prisoner."

"Which is probably exactly what she's trying to do, make us suffer as much as possible for taking her and I'd say she's putting some extra effort into annoying you since you're the one who put the sparkling in her. Just try to be patient and ignore it, there's not exactly anything else you can do without risking the sparkling. " Thundercracker said.

----------------

By that evening the cabin had been completely cleaned out, fire wood brought in, a large army green tarp secured over the roof and all of Eva's things had been moved into the cabin.

Eva filled the large kettle in the fireplace with water then pulled out a small pot and a can of chicken noodle soup and started it.

Once she had finished eating she stepped out onto the porch, "Hey birdbrain I need you're help inside." she called to Starscream who was sitting leaning back against some trees next to the cabin.

"What do you want now?" he demanded as his holoform appeared a foot in front of her causing her to jump back a couple feet.

Eva glared at him for a moment "I need you to carry the water into the bath tub for me." she replied as she walked back inside.

Starscream reluctantly carried the heated water in for her and dumped it into the tub, "You do realize that's too hot for your weak skin to touch without being burned?" he asked.

"Of course, I'll add cold from the pump to get it down to the right temperature. I'm not going to try to cook myself to death, I'm sure I could come up with something a little faster and less painful if I wanted to kill myself. Now get out so I can take a bath. Why don't you make yourself useful and wash the dishes." she said as she shoved him out the door then closed it behind him.

As she removed her shirt she ran her hand over her stomach amazed by the fact that even the scar had disappeared. If it weren't for the robots holding her captive and the remaining bits of dried blood that still stained her skin she wouldn't have been sure it had really happened.

Slipping into the large old tub she laid back and let her mind wander, mostly to thoughts of how she would kill the thing growing inside of her if her life didn't depend on it surviving.

By the time she climbed into bed she broke down and cried herself to sleep as the fear for her own life, worry about how her family would handle her disappearance and general hopelessness she was feeling about the whole situation seemed to finally overwhelm her.


	7. Chapter 7

Over the next couple of weeks Starscream and Thundercracker had repaired the cabin roof and Starscream had started bringing various wires and electrical looking devises back with him, but refused to tell Eva what they were for. Not because he didn't want her to know, but because he knew it irritated her and was one of the few things he could do to her without worrying about causing any trouble with the sparkling.

As for Eva, she spent most of her time wandering around the lake or sneaking off to explore the forest which always managed to get on Starscream's nerves. He constantly told her not to go into the forest because she could be attacked by a wild animal or even simply trip and be impaled by a stick or do some other damage that could cause complications with the sparkling. At one point he had threatened to lock her in the cabin and not let her out, but a simple threat that she would kill herself if she couldn't get out had quickly ended that threat.

After a few days it had become clear that what had been causing her to throw up had indeed been morning sickness and Eva savored every chance she got to use Starscream as a target when he was around when it struck.

That day she was feeling particularly nauseated after having finished breakfast so she decided to go out for a short walk to where Starscream was standing, working on positioning some large panels on top of a pole and attaching wires to it.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she sat down on a large log next to his foot.

"Working." he replied.

"Working on what exactly?" she asked, although she didn't really expect a strait answer.

"Something that will hopefully give you something better to do than try to annoy me." he replied.

"Aww, you don't like me spending time with you?" she asked turning so she was directly facing his foot as her stomach churned.

"No, if you're around you either try to annoy me or-" he stopped as she suddenly leaned forward and warm, slimy fluid began seeping through his foot, "do that." he finished letting out a sigh of frustrated resignation as he walked down to the edge of the lake and washed off his foot.

"Why don't you go annoy Thundercracker?" Starscream suggested irritably as he started to work on the panel again.

"Because he's not the one who stuck a little monster inside of me." Eva replied.

"How many times do I have to tell you it's a sparkling?" Starscream demanded.

"It's a parasitic, ugly little monster that has caused me nothing but pain and misery. I hope it survives to be born and then suffers a long slow death while you're there to watch it die." Eva said angrily before storming off.

She hated being trapped with no hope of escaping, she hated feeling nauseated so much of the time and knowing that there was an alien growing inside of her and being stuck with two giant alien robots, although she had to admit Thundercracker wasn't too bad, at least he seemed nice and would willingly talk to her and didn't treat her like she was stupid or ignore her. Most of all she hated Starscream and the sparkling, if it weren't for them she could have been safe and happy back at home.

Eva had gotten about a forth of the way around the lake when she ran into Thundercracker who was putting up a similar device to the one Starscream was setting up.

"Don't blame the sparkling for what's happening to you, it had no choice as to what happened. If you want someone to blame, blame Starscream and I, even Megatron, but the sparkling has done nothing wrong except exist." Thundercracker told her.

"Well I wish it had never been brought into existence then and I wish someone would just kill Starscream so he could never hurt anyone else." Eva replied angrily then looked up at him, "Who is Megatron?" she asked realizing she had no idea who he was.

"He's the leader of the Decepticons and the one who insisted on hunting down the Autobots instead of searching for a new source of energon to keep the sparklings alive. If it weren't for that we probably would have been galaxies away from your planet and may have found a way to keep the sparklings alive without needing anyone to carry them." Thundercracker explained.

"So if this Megatron wasn't so determined to kill the Autobots for revenge I wouldn't be suffering though this?" Eva asked.

"Yes." Thundercracker replied.

"If I ever meet him remind me to borrow one of your guns and shoot him." Eva said.

"You'll have to get in line, Starscream has been trying to come up with a way to offline Megatron for longer than you can imagine. He just has to wait for an opportunity when Megatron won't realize it was him trying to offline him if he survives." Thundercracker told her.

"Why does Starscream follow him if he hates him so much?" Eva asked.

"Because he believes he can do a better job of leading the Decepticons than Megatron has and that if Megatron continues to lead, our entire race will go extinct. He's just waiting to be able to take over and if he were to leave the Decepticons he'd lose any possibility of having that chance." Thundercracker told her then looked up as a jet circled overhead.

For a second Eva thought she would finally be rescued although she wasn't sure how much good one jet could do against two Decepticons, but as it flew lower her heart sank. The jet was black and purple and as it dropped lower she could see Decepticon symbols on its wings.

Thundercracker suddenly picked Eva up and flew the short distance across the lake to where the new Decepticon had landed and was transforming.

"What are you doing here?" Starscream was asking when they landed and Thundercracker set Eva down at the edge of the forest where she wouldn't be stepped on by the new Decepticon.

"Aren't you glad to see me?" the new one asked. "Weren't you worried about me or at least missed me at all?"

"Of course, but that doesn't mean I want you hanging around here and causing trouble." Starscream replied and was instantly knocked to the ground as the other one tackled him in a hug, knocking them both off balance.

"I knew you cared." he said happily as he got back up then turned to face Thundercracker, "Did you miss me too?"

"Not if you're going to tackle me for missing you." Thundercracker replied receiving a more subdued hug from the new comer.

"So Megatron said you had a pet human, where is it? I haven't gotten to see one close up yet." he said.

"Right here," Thundercracker said as he picked Eva up, "They're very fragile little things, you have to be very careful with them, especially this one, her name is Eva. Eva this is Skywarp."

"Uh, hi." Eva said uncertainly.

Skywarp reached out one finger and gently poked her in the arm then pulled his hand back, "No wonder the others kept calling them squishies, what a disgusting little thing." Skywarp said.

"Look who's talking tall, dark and ugly!" Eva replied angrily.

"Maggot." Skywarp replied.

"Overgrown toaster."

"Ugly bag of mostly water."

"Walking scrap heap."

"Slag for brains."

"Glitch head."

After several minutes of name calling and insulting each other Eva said, "Pit spawned pain in the aft."

Skywarp suddenly stopped for a second, "Alright who's been teaching the human Cybertronian insults? That totally gives her an unfair advantage."

"That would be Starscream's fault for calling me that when I throw up on him." Eva replied.

Skywarp hesitated a moment, obviously looking up the new term on the internet, "Eww, that's disgusting, is this something you do often?" he asked.

"At the moment, yes." Eva replied.

"Cool, can we invite Soundwave to stop by and see if he screams if she throws up on him?" Skywarp asked.

"No Skywarp, she is not to be used to pull any of your pranks, I don't want the sparkling getting hurt." Starscream replied.

"Anyways Starscream is my favorite target when I'm going to be sick, although if this Soundwave were to annoy me I wouldn't mind helping try to make him scream." Eva said.

"Oh I like this human." Skywarp said.

"Great, just what I need to deal with, two of the most annoying beings in the universe working together." Starscream said.

"Yep, you're slagged now." Thundercracker said.

"So the sparkling she's carrying is you're clone right?" Skywarp asked Starscream.

"Yes." Starscream replied.

"So does that make me an uncle or a big brother to it?" Skywarp asked then suddenly clamped his hand over his mouth and let out a muffled, "Slag." as they all looked rather uncomfortably at Eva.

"So you guys are brothers?" Eva said then asked, "Why are you all staring at me like that?"

"Could you do us a little favor and never ever mention that we're brothers to any of the other Decepticons?" Skywarp asked sounding rather worried.

"Why not? Eva asked.

"Because every time Megatron has had siblings working for him and known it he would hurt one sibling to control or punish another, so we've always been careful not to let him find out." Thundercracker explained.

"He honestly hasn't already figured out you three are brothers? I mean you look so much alike and the way you act around each other, I wouldn't think it would be that hard to figure out that you guys are at least related somehow." Eva said.

"Our similarity in appearance can easily enough be explained by our identical alt modes and seekers almost always work in small groups that are often almost as close as siblings with the exception that torturing one rarely has much effect in controlling the others." Starscream explained.

"So could you pretty please not tell anyone?" Skywarp pleaded getting down on his knees so he was at eye level with Thundercracker's hand where Eva was sitting.

"Oh fine, as long as you and Thundercracker keep being nice to me, I'll do it for your sake, there is one condition though." Eva said.

"What's that?" Skywarp asked.

"You have to teach me some new Cybertronian insults, help me come up with new names to call Starscream and ways to annoy him." Eva replied.

"I suppose I could do that." Skywarp said happily as he reached out his hand and Eva stepped onto it. "Let's see, first of all he hates being called Screamer." He told her as he started to walk away from the others.

"You are totally slagged now." Thundercracker told Starscream before returning to his work.

* * *

Skywarp's personality sort of came from the fact that in profiles he's often said to be a prankster and I don't really remember him that well from G1 as I've only seen it once and didn't know who the different characters were at the time, so if he's out of character that's part of the reason why, the other reason would be the fact that he's taken on a life of his own and his scenes seem to write themselves without me having to even think about them.


	8. Chapter 8

Over the next week Eva decided she was actually glad to have another Decepticon around. Skywarp had managed to keep her somewhat distracted from thinking about the sparkling with tales about pranks he had plaid on his brothers or other Decepticons and coming up with new ones. He had even snuck in a paint ball gun and she had found that shooting Starscream with multi colored balls of paint was a wonderful way to relieve stress. She had been quite shocked when Starscream took off and later returned with a dozen or so large balloons filled with paint and attacked Skywarp with them before threatening his life if he brought her any more paint balls, then threw him into the lake.

That day Skywarp had been sent to get some type of supplies leaving Eva to find ways to entertain herself. After getting board with reading and not really feeling like going for a long walk she decided to walk far enough to get to where Starscream was putting up yet another of his mysterious panels about a third of the way around the lake.

Sitting down on a nearby rock and deciding to irritate him with questions instead of just random insults she asked. "Where do sparklings come from?"

"There are a couple of ways to create sparklings, the most common isn't all that different from how humans reproduce, although it requires the joining of bodies and sparks." Starscream replied.

Eva was a little disappointed that he didn't seem uncomfortable about the subject like most humans would have been, but that wouldn't stop her from asking more questions. "What's a spark?" she asked.

"It's what keeps Cybertronians alive, it's our heart and soul and when two sparks are joined they can create a new spark that is then carried by the femme until its body has developed enough to survive." he replied not looking away from his work.

"What about the other way?" Eva asked.

Starscream let out a sad sounding sigh, "New sparklings use to be able to be created with the Allspark, a body would be created and then taken to the Allspark to be given a spark, but it was destroyed."

"What about the little monster, where did it come from and why did you need me to carry it." Eva asked ignoring his glare when she called it a monster.

"Our race is on the verge of extinction, there aren't enough femmes left to sustain our kind and with the Allspark gone we have no way to increase our numbers. Before the war unmarried femmes occasionally wanted a sparkling of their own and would have sparklings created from parts of their own sparks and then the sparkling was put into the femme to develop naturally. That's what I based my experiments on, it wasn't easy convincing the others to go along with it, having a part of your spark removed like that is quite painful, but in the end I was able to convince a dozen or so Decepticons to do it and began to grow the sparklings. Then we began to run low on energon and without it the sparklings began dieing, slowly starving to death until only one remained. I swore I wouldn't let it die and since there are no female Decepticons I tried to kidnap an Autobot femme, but was unsuccessful. It was after that failure that I decided to use a human to carry it." he said.

"Why even bother, you've made it clear you don't think there's much chance of it actually surviving?" Eva asked.

"Because it was better than doing nothing, I couldn't watch another innocent sparkling slowly starve and die." he replied with such a sad, heartbroken tone to his voice that it shocked Eva. "Why don't you go bother Thundercracker, I have work to get done here." he said suddenly as he walked away.

Eva staid there on her rock thinking about what Starscream had told her, wondering what she would have done if she were forced into a similar situation, watching her kind slowly go extinct as the few new babies died. She suddenly shook her head and jumped off of the rock then headed back towards the cabin, she didn't want to think about it, didn't want to feel any sympathy for Starscream or the sparkling she was carrying. It was because of them that she had been torn away from her life and feared every time she went to sleep that she would never wake up and that she would never see her family again. All she wanted was to simply hate them and yet the genuine sadness in Starscream's voice when he had mentioned watching the sparklings die made her wonder if she was putting too much blame on him, after all Thundercracker had said they wouldn't have even been anywhere near earth if it weren't for Megatron insisting they stay. Letting out a frustrated growl she threw a rock out into the lake then looked up hopefully when she heard a jet approaching.

"_Perfect timing Warp." _she thought, relieved to have a distraction from her thoughts as she ran along the lake shore to get to where he had landed.

"So what did you bring me this time?" she asked him.

He glanced around for a second to make sure Starscream and Thundercracker weren't nearby then pulled a large black garbage bag out of his cockpit and handed it to her.

Eva opened the bag and found several bags of brightly colored craft feathers and tubes of super glue. She grinned up at him as he finished removing the wires and other stuff Starscream had sent him after then picked her up, "So how are you going to get them to use their holoforms long enough for me to do this?" she whispered as he carried her towards the cabin and then sat down next to it.

"I don't know, I'm sure I can think of something." he replied as he rested his elbow on the roof of the cabin putting just enough weight on it to cause part of it to cave in, "Oh dear, look what I have done, I guess we will just have to fix that now and it is such small work we will have to use our holoforms to fix it." he said.

Eva's grin grew, "You're sure they won't be able to feel me sticking the feathers on them?" she asked.

"Don't worry as long as you don't actually climb onto them they won't feel a thing as long as they're using their holoforms and distracted with the repairs. And I'll keep them well distracted, you actually might be able to get away with climbing on them too, but I would do everything you can reach from the ground first just incase they do feel you." he told her as he set her down so she could hide the bag of supplies near where Starscream and Thundercracker usually sat when they were using their holoforms.

"Hey guys, we have a little problem over here!" Skywarp called as he walked to the edge of the lake and waved his brothers over.

"What did you do now?" Starscream asked running a quick scan on Eva and the sparkling to make sure they weren't injured.

"Well it was sort of an accident, Eva and I just got to talking and I wasn't thinking about where I was resting my arm." he replied pointing to the damaged roof.

"Why don't you just fix it yourself, it shouldn't take too long." Thundercracker suggested.

"But I've never done anything like fixing a human roof before what if it takes me longer than you think it will and Eva ends up having to sleep in the cold air and get's sick. We should just all work on it and get it done quickly then you two can get back to your other project." Skywarp said.

Starscream let out a frustrated sigh, "Fine, but if this happens again you're fixing it yourself."

"No problem, I'm sure once I see how you guys do it I won't have any worries about how long it would take me to do it by myself." Skywarp replied as all three of them sat down at the edge of the forest and activated their holoforms.

"I'm going for a walk, I'll see you guys later." Eva said.

"Be careful out there, I don't want that sparkling hurt." Starscream told her.

"I will be, just like I have been every other time I've gone hiking." Eva said before she headed into the forest.

As soon as they had left to start fixing up the cabin Eva stepped back out of the woods with the bag of glue and feathers, after making sure they were sitting far enough back in the trees that they wouldn't be able to see what she was doing from the cabin she set to work.


	9. Chapter 9

-1After over an hour of working Thundercracker had a neat row of bright blue feathers around each ankle and Starscream had multi colored feathers fully covering his feet making it look as if he were wearing fluffy slippers. Deciding she had done all she could from the ground Eva started to climb up onto Starscream's body as gently as she could. After making it up to his head she proceeded to glue on a full beard of feathers and then placed two tufts of red feathers on top of his head, making him look like he had feathery horns.

As she went to put the feathers back into the bag she noticed something heavier at the bottom, as she pulled out several good sized plastic containers it took all of her self control to not start laughing maniacally as she reached back in to get out more glue.

Once she had finished Eva walked down to the lake shore where she could see both the cabin and the now fully decorated bodies of her captors. Skywarp had of course not suffered as she didn't really consider him a captor, but a partner in crime, Thundercracker had only received the minimal coating of feathers at his ankles and a couple additional decorations because he had always been nice to her and it was neither his idea nor was he directly responsible for her life being made miserable. Starscream on the other hand had received the brunt of her artistic creations, for a moment she wondered if she should be hiding instead of laying out in the sun waiting to see their reactions. If this didn't push Starscream over the edge she was quite sure nothing she ever did would risk any harm to her so long as the sparkling lived.

--

"Hey Eva wake up we're done!" Skywarp called as he ran over to wake her from where she had fallen asleep on the large flat rock.

Eva sat up, grinned at Skywarp and watched as the other two walked towards them still using their holoforms.

"Why is she grinning?" Starscream demanded.

"What I have to be miserable all the time? I'm not allowed to be happy?" Eva asked sarcastically.

"Of course you're allowed to be happy, but I haven't seen you smile since I brought you here and the fact that it's Skywarp you're smiling at makes me think you two are up to something." Starscream replied.

"Why would you think we're-" Skywarp stopped for a second as he turned to face Starscream and then looked behind him to see Eva's handy work for the first time. He struggled to control himself then failing miserably he burst out laughing. "You- are- the- best." he said to Eva through his laughing.

"Why thank you very much." Eva replied with a grin.

Starscream and Thundercracker turned to see what he was laughing at and just stared in shock at their bodies. Starscream had not only been covered in feathers but had dozens of glittery flowers and hearts drawn all over him, the word birdbrain written in large glittery letters on one wing a few feet up from his shoulder and both of their Decepticon symbols had been given large smiles and blue eyes.

"Are you in a hurry to die human?" Starscream demanded angrily as he turned to face her.

"Well lets see, you already don't think I'll survive carrying the little monster so I'm basically just sitting around waiting to die and if you kill me now I won't have to suffer through anymore symptoms of being pregnant, especially the morning sickness which I'm getting quite tired of, so sure why don't you just end my suffering now?" Eva asked, "Oh and while we're on the subject of morning sickness there's a bit of a mess you might want to clean off of your right arm." she added causing Skywarp to double over laughing again after having nearly stopped.

Starscream stood there glaring at her while clenching and unclenching his fists for a moment before finally turning off his holoform and storming into the lake.

"You do realize he could have killed you for doing this?" Thundercracker asked her.

"Well it's not like I have a reason to care, unless someone comes to rescue me from you guys I'm going to die sooner or later, I might as well get as much revenge as possible while I can." Eva replied.

"But if you do survive carrying the sparkling-" Thundercracker started to say.

"Then I get to spend the rest of my life carrying sparklings? I don't think so, I won't live like that. If I don't get away from you guys, and the sparkling doesn't kill me I'll kill myself before I spend the rest of my life like that." Eva told him.

Thundercracker started to open his mouth to say something then stopped, looking completely unsure of how to respond he finally turned off his holoform and headed out into the lake to try to get the feathers off.

"You would really kill yourself if you couldn't get away?" Skywarp asked, suddenly sounding more serious than Eva had ever heard him before.

"Yes, I can't live like this, never seeing my family again, having no freedom, I just can't deal with living the rest of my life like that." Eva replied suddenly on the verge of tears.

Skywarp suddenly hugged her and she totally broke down and started sobbing, "I won't let that happen to you." Skywarp whispered to her, "If it comes down to it I'll help you escape after the sparkling is born."

Eva's head shot up to look him in the eyes, "What about Starscream, if he were to find out-"

"What's the worst he can do to me? I'm his little brother, unless I tried to kill him he'd never really hurt me." Skywarp replied.

"What about Megatron?"

"He wouldn't care, he thinks this whole thing is a waste of time and from what I heard when I was at the base he has no intention of letting any of his other soldiers go to watch over humans who are carrying sparklings. All he cares about is destroying the Autobots." Skywarp told her. "Now stop worrying about the future and enjoy the show." he said as Starscream let out a long string of Cybertronian sounds as he tore off another handful of feather and tried to scratch off the glue and the bases of feathers that were still stuck in it. "Just don't ask for translations of what he's saying, a race that has been at war for thousands of years comes up with some unique ways of swearing and I couldn't even begin to translate it into English."

"He's that upset about a few feathers?" Eva asked.

"Oh you have no idea, luckily for you he's blaming me just as much as he's blaming you for this." Skywarp replied then shouted, "Hey Screamer, why don't you just leave the stuff on, it makes you look better!"

Starscream glared up at him for a moment then turned to Thundercracker and whispered something quietly enough that neither Eva or Skywarp could hear him. A moment later he and Thundercracker took off, transforming before they disappeared from sight.

"What do you think they're up to?" Eva asked.

"They're probably just heading somewhere else to clean off so I can't make fun of them."

-----

An hour or so later Eva was inside reading when she heard Starscream and Thundercracker return. A few minutes later she jumped out of her chair when she heard a loud crash and felt the ground shake. She ran outside in time to see Starscream and Thundercracker, each with one foot on either of Skywarp's shoulders, pinning him to the ground as Starscream poured a large plastic barrel of what she assumed was glue, down his back and legs. Thundercracker then pulled several large garbage bags out of his cockpit and dumped hundreds of feathers onto the glue.

"Now are you going to behave or do we have to have a repeat of _the incidenti_?" Starscream demanded.

Skywarp immediately stopped squirming, "Alright, alright, I'll behave, for now." he replied.

"For now, had better be a good long time." Thundercracker said as he finally let Skywarp up, then he and Starscream headed back out into the lake to continue trying to remove the glue, glitter and feathers.

"So what is the incident?" Eva asked as she walked over to Skywarp and started helping pick the feathers off of his leg.

Skywarp chuckled evilly, "Well, when we would have been, probably in our late teens compared to humans, I got some of this really obnoxiously bright paint, it was yellow, pink, orange and green and so bright that if the light hit it at the right angle it could be almost blinding. Well I managed to paint stripes of it on TC and Screamer's backs while they were asleep. Our parents were away and Screamer always took extra science classes in the morning so he left before TC was awake so there was no one to warn them about it and they spent most of the day walking around like that until they ran into each other and noticed it and realized why everyone had been staring at them strangely all day.

They didn't say anything about it and I thought maybe they didn't realize it had been me and that I had gotten away with it, until I woke up being pinned down and tied up. They found my stash of paint, painted me with a great big target then tied me to one of the pillars on the front of the school the next morning after the teachers were all already inside, but before all the students had gone in and they sold balloons full of paint to people to let them throw them at me until school started. I was stuck, tied up there dripping with blindingly bright paint until the teachers came out at the end of the day."

"And yet you still keep doing stuff like this, even though you know they'll retaliate?" Eva asked.

"Someone has to keep things from getting too tense, if I didn't lighten the mood once in a while the stress of the war would have driven us all crazy a long time ago. Anyways they haven't retaliated since the first year or so after we joined the Decepticons, I don't know if it's being around you, being away from the others or a combination of both, but they've both lightened up quite a bit, more like they were before we joined the Decepticons." Skywarp told her.

--------

That night, as Eva laid in bed trying to fall asleep she gasped as she felt the sparkling move. She laid there for a long moment fully concentrating on the slight movements of the sparkling. She had spent so long thinking of the sparkling as a mindless monster, hating it for the suffering she was going through and using that hatred to block herself from thinking about it as anything more than monster.

Suddenly as she felt it move the hatred seemed to melt away and she could no longer deny the fact that it was a helpless infant that had had no more choice in being forced into the situation than she had had.

Eva curled onto her side and wrapped her arms around her stomach, "I'm so sorry I've been so hateful towards you, I know this isn't your fault." she whispered to it before finally falling asleep.


	10. Chapter 10

Over the next week Starscream and Thundercracker finished setting up the panels around the lake and had spent many hours trying to get the glue and glitter off of themselves. Thundercracker had managed to get most of it off, but Starscream still had several partial hearts and flowers on him and one eye of his Decepticon emblem was still blue. Skywarp had been assigned the job of keeping Eva entertained and occasionally left to get more supplies, but Thundercracker or Starscream always checked everything he brought back with him to ensure he wasn't sneaking anything to Eva.

"Hey birdbrain!" Eva called as she came out of the cabin that morning and walked over to Starscream.

"Would it kill you to call me by my name?" Starscream asked.

"Okay fine, Screamer, I need new clothes, the ones I brought with me are getting to tight." Eva told him.

"Oh this should be fun, can I come with you? I'd love to get some video of you buying a ton of maternity clothes and the strange looks people are sure to give you." Skywarp asked as he walked over to join them.

"You're right, a guy going and buying a few maternity clothes might not be that unusual, but getting a whole new wardrobe would look odd." Eva agreed.

"You can sew can't you? Starscream asked.

"Sure if I had a sewing machine, but as much as I love to make my own clothes, without a sewing machine I'd go crazy or have the sparkling before I could get anything made. So with no electricity out here unless you can find a working antique sewing machine you'll just have to go shopping." Eva replied.

"Fine I'll see what I can find for you." Starscream replied then glanced at Skywarp for a second before he took off.

"So have you eaten yet today?" Skywarp asked.

"Yeah, why?" Eva asked.

"I thought we could go hiking, I like seeing things from you're point of view so I thought we could go exploring together. We can even pack you lunch and just hang out in the forest and see how long it takes Starscream to start panicking and come looking for you."

"Oh that sounds like fun, I'll go grab lunch and be right out." Eva replied grinning evilly then headed into the cabin to get the food.

---

Eva and Skywarp spent the rest of the day out hiking, with Skywarp's ability to access the internet there wasn't a single animal, plant or even rock that they couldn't identify. By the time they headed back towards the cabin the sun was already starting to set and Eva was exhausted, but hadn't felt so happy or at peace since she had been brought kidnapped.

"Maybe we should take a break, I'm getting really tired and my feet and legs hurt." Eva said lowering herself onto a log.

"I shouldn't have brought you so far out here, are you alright." Skywarp asked.

"I'll be fine, I'm just really tired is all and I'm glad we did this, I haven't gotten to explore this far yet and who knows how much longer I would be able to make it this far." Eva said resting her hand on her stomach as the sparkling started kicking.

"Well we need to get you back so you can get some proper rest and I don't want you exhausting yourself anymore." Skywarp said as his holoform suddenly changed.

Eva gasped as the robot who had been standing in front of her was replaced by a human man, he was just short of six feet tall, had short brown hair, was well built and wore black jeans with a dark purple t-shirt.

"Why did you make yourself human?" Eva asked.

"Like I said we need to get you back to the cabin without exhausting you anymore and I thought this would be more comfortable than hard pointy metal." he replied then scooped her up into his arms and started walking back to the cabin.

"I can walk myself, you don't have to carry me back." Eva told him.

"Sure and if I let you get any more exhausted than you already are I'll have to put up with Starscream throwing a fit about it. Trust me I'm doing this as much for my own good as your's." he replied.

"Alright." Eva replied already starting to doze off with her head on his shoulder.

------------------

"Eva, Eva wake up." Skywarp said.

"Why, I don't want to." she replied drowsily opening one eye to see that it was completely dark out.

"Were back and trust me you want to wake up." he told her as he stepped up onto the porch of the cabin.

"Why do I want to wake up." Eva asked as he set her down.

"You'll see." he replied as he opened the door for her.

As Eva stepped inside, the cabin was suddenly filled with light that was coming from an electric light that was hanging from the ceiling. "Those panels you guys have been putting up around the lake, they were solar panes weren't they?" Eva asked smiling.

"Yep, since you brought you're computer and DVDs with you Starscream thought if we could get you some electric he wouldn't have to put up with you harassing him as often for entertainment." Thundercracker told her from where he was standing at one side of the room with Starscream.

Before she could reply Eva noticed a new door on the far side of the room. "What's with the door?" she asked wondering why they would have added a back door to such a small cabin.

"That was Thundercracker's idea." Skywarp told her as he stepped forward and opened the door for her.

Eva gasped when she realized it was a whole new room, the right wall was lined with shelves containing dozens of bolts of fabric and other sewing supplies, along the far wall sat a large comfortable looking couch and chair, to the left was a large sewing table to cut things out on and then a smaller table with a sewing machine on it.

Skywarp stepped into the room, "and this was my idea." he said pulling open two doors to a cabinet that sat along the wall next to the door to reveal a large flat screen TV, DVD player and a shelf with all of the DVDs Eva had brought.

"Guys this is amazing, thank you so much, I can't believe you did this all in one day." Eva said.

"Well we had the extra room planned for a while and have been sneaking the lights, TV and other stuff in and keeping it hidden for a while now along with having all the wood ready to be used. The only stuff we had to bring in today was the sewing stuff and Starscream went and got it while I started on the new room." Thundercracker told her.

"It's still a lot of work for one day and it'll be so nice especially with it starting to get colder out so I won't be able to stay outside as much." Eva said stifling a yawn.

"We need to get you fed and into bed, you've had a long day and you're exhausted." Starscream said.

"I guess you're right." Eva replied trying to fight the exhaustion that was trying to take over her as the excitement of the new room and electricity started to die down.

"Why don't you relax and we'll make you something to eat." Skywarp suggested as he led Eva over to the couch.

"I don't know, nothing I have here sounds good." Eva replied.

"Well you have to eat something." Starscream told her.

"Then why don't you go pick me up some chocolate ice cream and Doritos? That's all that sounds good right now." Eva told him.

"It's already late, we can get you that tomorrow along with a freezer to keep the ice cream cold." Starscream replied.

"What the heck does the time have to do with anything, you don't want anyone noticing you making too many trips in and out of here anyways so going at night would make more sense and I'm sure you can find somewhere that's open twenty four hours to get the stuff from." Eva replied.

"You need to eat quickly and get to sleep, you can eat something we already have hear." Starscream replied.

"No! I want chocolate ice cream and Doritos I'm not going to eat anything else!" Eva replied stubbornly.

"You need something healthier than that, you are going to eat something we already have here." Starscream told her.

"You can't make me, I'll eat what ever I want! Go get me my ice cream and Doritos now!" Eva demanded angrily.

"I'm not going anywhere and I'm not going to bring you any at all if you don't stop being so stubborn." Starscream replied getting irritated.

Eva suddenly burst into tears, "You don't care about us at all do you? You figure the sparkling probably won't survive so why go to the trouble of even bothering to keep it alive. You're trying to kill us." she sobbed curling up on the couch, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she cried.

"_What's wrong with her?" _Skywarp asked over their comlink.

"_It's called mood swings, it's another side effect of human pregnancy and might be made worse by the fact that she's exhausted." _Starscream replied.

"You know you're shaped kind of like a Dorito." Eva said suddenly walking over to Starscream and licking his side.

Starscream jumped away from her as she dropped to her knees on the floor and started crying again, "But you don't taste like one." she sobbed as all three Decepticons stared at her in shock and confusion.

"_Maybe you should just go get her what she wants, you may be able to get back before we could convince her to eat something else anyways." _Thundercracker said.

Letting out a frustrated sigh Starscream said, "Fine I'll go get your ice cream and Doritos if you'll just calm down and stop crying."

"O- okay." Eva replied between sobs.

--

Buy the time Starscream returned Skywarp and Thundercracker had managed to get Eva calmed down and were watching a movie with her, one of them sitting on each end of the couch with Eva laying with her head on Skywarp's lap and her feet resting on Thundercracker's lap.

As soon as Starscream walked into the cabin Eva stared at him, "What happened to you? Why do you look like that?" she asked looking over his suddenly very different appearance as she walked into the kitchen. Instead of the wide triangular body she was use to seeing he was skinnier and more human shaped.

"This is what I looked like before taking my earth alt mode, I don't feel like risking you licking me again, but I don't like walking around looking like a human either so I thought this would work well." Starscream told her as he dished her up a bowl of ice cream then handed it to her along with a bag of Doritos.

"You know you look a lot better like that, face still looks like you hit every branch on the ugly tree when you fell off and then climbed back up for seconds, but it's still an improvement." she said as she took the food from him and headed back to watch her movie while she ate.


	11. Chapter 11

Sorry for disappearing for so long, at the last minute I decided to sign up for the National Novel Writing Month challenge to write 50,000 words in November so I didn't have much time for anything else. I did manage to write over 50,000 words before it ended, so I'm quite happy about that. Now that it's over updates should be back to normal for the next several chapters and then will depend on how much time I have for writing.

* * *

When Eva stepped out of the cabin the next morning she walked over to Skywarp, "Did I really lick Starscream last night?" she asked.

Skywarp chuckled, "Yep, you sure did, we were all beginning to wonder if you had fried a circuit or something, but Starscream thought it was just another side effect from carrying the sparkling, not that that made any difference in how badly it freaked him out." he told her, laughing.

Eva groaned and leaned her forehead against his foot, "Maybe or it could have been a combination of that and the fact that I was exhausted, I tend to get a little crazy if I'm really tired." she told him blushing slightly.

"Cool maybe we should let you go without sleep more often and see what other new ways you can come up with to freak Screamer out with." Skywarp suggested.

"I don't think so, it's too embarrassing most of the time." Eva replied, "So do you have any plans for today? I could teach you to sew."

"Maybe later, Starscream is working on some new project and wants me to go find you a fridge so we don't have to go out as often to get you food." Skywarp told her.

"Okay, once you get it set up and working could you bring me a ton of sausage, and Hershey's chocolate." Eva asked.

"Is this another one of those pregnancy cravings? I don't know a lot about human food, but that doesn't sound like a normal combination." Skywarp asked.

"Maybe, but pregnant or not sausage and chocolate are actually pretty good together." Eva told him.

"Okay, I'll see what I can do for you, you won't go crazy if I don't get it for you until after we have the fridge chilled will you? You make a fun little sister, but I sure don't want you trying to lick me or bawling your eyes out if I don't get it for you fast enough." Skywarp said.

"No, I'll be fine." Eva said, "Little sister huh?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

"Sure, you may be human, but I always wanted a little sister and you make a better, more fun sister than anything I ever imagined." Skywarp told her.

Eva smiled, "Well I never had any desire to have a brother, but if I had had any idea brothers could be as much fun as you are I would have." she replied, "Now go get that fridge and maybe by the time you get back I'll have some clothes made that fit right and then we can move on to plotting what we can do to Starscream next."

"Sounds like a good plan to me." Skywarp said happily before taking off.

------------------

A couple of hours later Eva had several outfits cut out and was starting to sew them together when she heard Skywarp return. She headed to the door to greet him, but he set the new fridge down on the porch and started to walk away before she even got the door open.

She stepped outside and started to walk towards where he was headed towards Starscream.

"Hey Screamer, I thought you might want to know I saw Megatron on my way back and I think he's headed here." Skywarp said.

"What?! He's coming here?" Starscream asked a hint of worry in his voice.

"As far as I could tell, he was alone and headed in this direction, I can't think of any other reason he would come this far north." Skywarp replied.

"Get Eva and-" he stopped as a large alien looking jet started to descend towards them and then transformed.

"What are you doing here lord Megatron?" Starscream asked moving so he was standing in front of Eva.

"I came to see how you're experiment with the fleshling is going." Megatron replied.

"It's going quite well, both the sparkling and the human are doing well, I believe there is a good chance the sparkling will survive." Starscream replied.

"Where is the fleshling?" Megatron asked.

"Right here." Eva said stepping around Starscream's foot so she could look up at Megatron, "So you're the leader of the Decepticons?" she asked mentally adding I'_and the one most responsible for me being stuck in this situation.'/i_

"That's lord Megatron to you fleshling." he replied.

"Lord Mega-ugly is more like it, how do you decide who leads the Decepticons, have a competition to see who's uglier? I thought Starscream was ugly, but you look like you got your face run through a garbage disposal. I mean I've heard of faces only a mother could love, but I've got to wonder if even a mother could love that face. Then again if your mother couldn't stand to look at you long enough to properly raise you that would explain why you ended up being so incredibly stupid." Eva said.

"Why you insolent little maggot!" Megatron yelled angrily raising his fist.

Eva gasped in shock, but didn't have time to react as his fist suddenly came down towards her, in a split second she realized instead of being slightly off to the side like Starscream had done to try to scare her into obeying a few times, Megatron's fist was coming strait at her.

Then suddenly Starscream caught his arm, stopping him and Eva ran over to Skywarp who quickly picked her up.

"How dare you get in my way." Megatron growled angrily as he suddenly slammed his fist into the side of Starscream's head, knocking him to the ground.

"Lord Megatron the sparkling." Starscream said starting to try to get back up.

"You can get a new human and create a new sparkling for your experiment, I will not allow any creature that shows such disrespect towards me to live." Megatron said as he suddenly kicked Starscream hard enough in the chest to throw him backwards several feet. "And you will not get in my way again." he told him as he viciously twisted Starscream's arm causing the metal to twist and bend.

"Skywarp do something, make him stop." Eva said desperately.

"There's nothing I can do, Starscream told me to take care of you and not interfere." Skywarp told her.

"Forget what he told you-"

"He'll be alright, Megatron won't kill him." Skywarp told her.

"But he's hurting him, you have to do something." she said then turned back to look at Starscream as she heard what sounded like a large amount of metal being snapped in two and could see Starscream's arm now twisted beyond recognition hanging limply at his side with pale blue liquid dripping from it.

"Lord Megatron please, you don't understand, this could happen with every human we try to use, look it up if you don't believe me, it's called mood swings it's a side effect of human pregnancy, it makes them act crazy. She'll be screaming and insulting us one minute and cowering in fear the next, it's completely unpredictable and will probably happen with any human we use. It just means if this works we'll have to limit those who watch the humans to ones who understand this and can ignore it." Starscream told him.

"He's right lord Megatron, only last night she went from screaming to crying to even licking Starscream before we were able to get her calmed down, pregnancy just makes humans crazy." Thundercracker told him as he ran over to them.

Megatron hesitated a moment obviously looking it up to confirm what they were telling him and Skywarp suddenly placed Eva in his cockpit.

"What are you doing?" Eva asked.

"I don't know, Starscream just said that it's important that I make sure Megatron can't run a scan on you and the sparkling, but he didn't say why." he replied through the radio in the cockpit.

Megatron suddenly grabbed Starscream by the throat and slammed him back into some trees, "Fine, you may keep you disrespectful little maggot, but if you ever get in my way again I'll make you regret it." he said angrily before dropping Starscream to the ground and taking off.

As soon as Megatron was gone Thundercracker and Skywarp ran to Starscream's side. "Do you have any sever damage aside from your arm?" Thundercracker asked.

"Where's Eva, if she alright? Is the sparkling alright?" Starscream asked.

"A bit shaken, but they're fine." Skywarp replied as he took Eva out of his cockpit.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know, I never thought he would attack me or hurt you." Eva sobbed feeling completely overwhelmed with guilt as she looked at the large amount of damage Starscream had received because of protecting her, or at least the sparkling. No mater how much she hated what she was going through because of him, there was a small part of her that understood why he had done it and she couldn't stand seeing him hurt so badly because of her.

"Shh it's alright, I've suffered far worse than this, I'll be fine and it's more my fault than your's, I should have warned you as soon as you started getting so over confident about the sparkling keeping us from hurting you, that it wouldn't work against Megatron. I just never thought he would bother coming out here." Starscream told her, "Skywarp take her inside and see if you can get her calmed down, she's too stressed, she needs to relax." he said.

"Alright." Skywarp replied before taking Eva back to the cabin.


	12. Chapter 12

By that evening between Starscream's repair systems and some help from Thundercracker he was almost fully repaired although some of the metal on his arm was still twisted causing him to have some trouble using it.

Skywarp had stayed with Eva the rest of the day, reassuring her that Starscream really hadn't been hurt that badly and trying to convince her that it wasn't her fault he had been hurt.

"He really will be fine, anyways, you don't even like him, why are you getting so upset about this?" Skywarp asked.

"I just feel horrible that he was hurt because of me, I know he only did it to protect the sparkling, but if he hadn't I would have died too." Eva replied.

"Well don't worry about him, Megatron is like that all the time, especially with Starscream, I think it's sort of his way of trying to intimidate him and make sure he doesn't try to challenge him to a fight over who should lead." Skywarp told her, "Now why don't you go get ready for bed and I'll take care of the dishes, it's been a long stressful day and you need your sleep."

"Alright." Eva agreed somewhat reluctantly.

----

Once Eva had gone to bed Skywarp had turned his holoform off and went to check on Starscream. Eva laid in bed trying to fall asleep for a while, but all she could think about was how close she had come to dieing that day and how much danger she had put herself and the sparkling in. Finally unable to stand being left alone with her thoughts any longer she grabbed her bathrobe and headed outside.

"The twisted metal is taking longer to heal than a clean break would have, but I should be good as new in less than a day." she heard Starscream saying.

"Good, now what was with that message earlier about not letting Megatron scan Eva and the sparkling?" Skywarp asked.

"Yeah, you sounded really concerned about it." Thundercracker added.

"Neither one of you have done an in depth scan on her have you?" Starscream asked.

"No." they both replied, "Just basic scans, enough to detect the sparkling, but not much more than that." Thundercracker added.

"The experiment didn't work, if Megatron had scanned her he would have killed her and the sparkling no matter what I said." Starscream said.

"What do you mean, the sparkling is still alive and Eva seems to be doing just fine?" Thundercracker asked.

"Oh they're both doing fine, I'm almost sure they'll both survive the pregnancy as well, but when I programmed the nanites I programmed them to alter Eva's body so she could handle carrying the sparkling and make any adjustments that were necessary to allow the sparkling to absorb energy from her. It obviously worked, but not how I thought it would, the sparkling was supposed to be a perfect clone, but in order to allow the sparkling to absorb energy from her the sparkling was altered as well. Its now semi organic, at first it was just it's energy absorption system, but it's slowly becoming more organic as it grows. At this point I don't know what to expect by the time it's born or if it'll be able to survive once it is been born. There's a good chance it'll work similarly to how a human's body reacts to a transplanted body part, the Cybertronian and organic halves will react to the other as if it's some type of disease and try to destroy each other, killing the sparkling in the process ." Starscream explained.

"And even if it did survive Megatron would never let a part organic sparkling live. How long have you known this?" Thundercracker asked.

"Since the second week she was carrying the sparkling." Starscream replied.

"You've known that long that the experiment was a failure and that Megatron would never let the sparkling live? Why didn't you ever put an end to it if you knew it wasn't going to work?" Thundercracker asked.

"Because there is still a slim chance the sparkling will survive. It's a living sentient being, it's my clone, my sparkling and if Megatron won't allow it to live I'll take it to Optimus Prime if I have to, but I won't allow it to be murdered just because it didn't turn out the way I expected it to." Starscream said.

"But I thought you didn't want the Autobots to find out that you were trying to find a way to create sparklings." Skywarp said.

"Even if we could have kept Megatron from finding out about the sparkling's organic half, the Autobots would have found out after the sparkling was born anyways." Starscream replied then hesitated.

"Why, how could they have possibly found?" Skywarp asked.

"Eva probably would have gone and told them." Starscream replied.

"But you said-" Thundercracker said.

"That if the experiment worked she would permanently become our prisoner, but it didn't work, not the way it was supposed to."

"You also said if it didn't work that you would kill her." Thundercracker pointed out.

Starscream hesitated for a long moment then said, "I think we've all become rather attached to her."

"Wait a minute I thought you hated her." Skywarp said.

"She's the one who hates me, she drives me crazy sometimes, but, how can I hate someone who reminds me so much of myself, she's so strong, so determined and stubborn even in the most hopeless of situations she refuses to give up. If she were Cybertronian I- she would make a fine soldier." he finished rather quickly.

"So we keep her safe until the sparkling is born and then we're letting her go?" Skywarp asked.

"Yes." Starscream replied

"What if Megatron finds out before the sparkling is born and wants us to kill her?" Thundercracker asked.

"Then we'll take her to the Autobots if we have to, Optimus Prime would never let any innocent, sentient being be harmed." Starscream replied.

"What if Megatron comes out here and tries to kill her himself before we can get her to the Autobots?" Skywarp asked.

"He'll have to go through me first, no one will hurt her or my sparkling so long as I function." Starscream replied.

"Good, because I was about to say the same thing." Skywarp said.

"Me too." Thundercracker added.

"You know how dangerous it is to openly defy Megatron." Starscream said.

"Of course we do, but nobody's going to mess with my little sister." Skywarp stated.

"Little sister?" Starscream and Thundercracker asked.

"Well yeah, you know how much I always wanted a little sister when we were sparklings and I just can't help it, at some point I just started thinking of her as my adopted little sister." Skywarp admitted a little hesitantly.

"A Cybertronian adopting a human as their sibling? You do realize how absolutely insane that sounds, don't you?" Thundercracker asked seriously.

"Yeah, but I just can't help thinking of her like that." Skywarp replied sounding a little embarrassed.

"Good, as long as you realize how insane you are," Thundercracker said then his tone lightened, "just remember she was my little sister first."

"What?" Skywarp asked in shock.

"I was here when we first took her and was thinking of her more as family before you even got to earth, so she was my little sister first." Thundercracker replied.

"No way I was the first to admit I thought of her as being our sister, you were probably too worried about Starscream and I thinking you were crazy to have ever admitted it if I hadn't said it first, so that means she was my little sister first." Skywarp said.

"Well she-"

"If we're through with having intelligent conversations why don't you two go argue somewhere else, I need to recharge." Starscream cut in before Thundercracker could finish replying.

"Fine." they both replied then started to walk away.

"She has more fun hanging out with me." Skywarp said.

"Maybe, if all she wants is mindless distractions or entertainment, but she comes to me if she wants intelligent conversation." Thundercracker replied.

Once they were far enough away Starscream sat down leaning back against a tree and his eyes dimmed.

Eva silently made her way back to the cabin and curled up in bed as her mind raced. Knowing that the sparkling wasn't turning out the way Starscream had hoped and that Megatron would kill it if he found out, she felt even more shocked that Starscream, knowing how Megatron would react, had protected her. And the fact that he had been protecting her and not just the sparkling stunned her even more. After everything she had put him though he was just as protective of her as Thundercracker and Skywarp were.

She sighed as her mind turned to thoughts that, until that night she had refused to let herself think about. Maybe she had been to hard on him, after all, all he was trying to do was save an innocent baby's life as well as his entire race, who new, if she had been forced into a similar situation she may have done the same thing.

She couldn't help smiling as she thought of Thundercracker and Skywarp. She never would have imagined that she would end up with two alien robots as adopted brothers, but she couldn't deny that she had come to think of them as family just as much as they seemed to think of her that way. The last thought to cross her mind as she drifted off was wondering how long the two of them would continue to argue over her.

-------

It was the next day and Eva was laying in the sun on the large flat rock at the edge of the lake feeling completely relaxed and at peace, with one hand resting on her stomach as the sparkling kicked. Starscream was several yards away working on his newest project.

She closed her eyes enjoying the feeling of the sun warming her, a few minutes later she opened her eyes as the sun was blocked and nearly screamed when she saw Megatron coming right towards her.

As quickly as she could she jumped off of the rock and ran over to Starscream.

"What are you doing here, lord Megatron?" Starscream asked.

"I took some scans of the human yesterday and was just going over them, you lied to me, the experiment was a failure, I want that human and the monster it's carrying destroyed immediately." Megatron said.

"No, I won't hurt them." Starscream replied.

"How dare you disobey me." Megatron growled before swinging his fist into Starscream's face.

Eva ducked behind a large tree and watched helplessly as Megatron continued to beat Starscream until Thundercracker and Skywarp landed behind him and started to fight him as Starscream struggled to his feet and joined them.

She wasn't sure how much time passed, but the battle seemed to go on forever and then Megatron suddenly pulled his arm back as if he was going to slug Thundercracker, but instead his arm formed into a large canon and he fired it strait into Thundercracker's chest leaving a gaping hole strait through him.

She watched in horror as his eyes flickered once and then went dark as his body collapsed lifelessly to the ground.

Megatron suddenly spun towards Skywarp, a large blade replacing the canon as he turned then ran it through Skywarp's chest causing him to cry out in pain then knocked him to the ground.

Eva ran to his side as Starscream continued to fight Megatron, "Get out of here Eva, you've got to run, get as far away from here as possible." Skywarp told her.

"I can't just leave you." Eva sobbed.

"Don't worry about me, just keep yourself and the sparkling safe." he told her before his eyes went dark.

Eva let out a cry of shock as Starscream suddenly fell only a few feet behind her. As she looked at him she was horrified to find his chest ripped open to reveal the slowly pulsing light of his spark. "Run, it's your only chance." he told her as he struggled to get closer to her.

"Now it's your turn maggot." Megatron said aiming his canon at her.

Eva didn't even have time to try to escape before the canon started to glow and she heard Starscream yell at her to run as he tried, but failed to get up to attack Megatron again.

* * *

Sorry for taking so long to update this, I just have so many projects I'm working on that I can't keep up with them all.

So I've decided to just end the story here. . .

Okay not really, I'm just not going to make any guarantees about how often I'll be posting new chapters, although I will promise to have the next one up in a week and if I don't then feel free to send Megatron to hold a canon to my head until I post it. After that though updates will come as I have the time to work on them.


	13. Chapter 13

Eva shot up in bed, her heart pounding and her whole body shaking, it took every ounce of strength she had to keep from breaking down into tears. Grabbing her bathrobe she ran outside to where Starscream was sitting.

As she approached him his eyes lit up, "What are you doing out here," he asked then after running a quick scan on her, "What's wrong?" he asked gently picking her up and holding her up to eye level with him.

"Where are Thundercracker and Skywarp?" she asked trying to keep her voice steady.

"They're recharging on the other side of the lake." he told her.

"Are you sure they're alright?" Eva asked.

"Of course, I can see them and pick up their heat signatures from here. Here I just took this a few seconds ago." he said as he projected a thermal image into the air a few feet in front of her, showing where they were sitting.

Eva relaxed a little, although she would have rather had them right there with her.

"Now, what has you so upset?" Starscream asked.

"I just had a nightmare, that's all." Eva replied desperately trying not to start crying at the thought of it.

"Do you want to talk about? It seems to have upset you badly." Starscream said wondering what could have possibly upset her so badly, he hadn't seen her so upset since the first few days after he had captured her, unless it had more to do with the mood swings instead of her truly being upset.

Eva hesitated a moment fighting back tears at the thought of the nightmare, but finally told him about it.

By the time Eva had finished she was in tears, "Shh, it's alright," Starscream said trying not to flinch at the pain from his injuries as he hesitantly brought his other hand up to gently stroke her back with one finger, "as long as you don't mouth off to Megatron again he won't hurt you." he told her.

"Don't lie to me, I couldn't sleep earlier so I came outside for a while and over heard you telling the others about the sparkling, I know Megatron will kill me if he finds out." Eva replied fighting back a sob.

Starscream gently used one finger to lift her chin so she was looking up into his eyes, "Then you should also know that no matter what happens we won't let him hurt you." he said.

"But what if he does kill you guys?" Eva asked.

"Even if he did attack us he wouldn't have much chance against more than one of us and we would have Skywarp take you to the Autobots where you would be safe." he told her.

"But I don't want you guys to get hurt or killed trying to protect me." Eva said.

"We'll be just fine, chances are Megatron won't even find out about the sparkling until after its been born and you're safely back home." Starscream told her, "Now you need to get some sleep, I don't want to deal with mood swings from the pit and you trying to lick me again because you're to tired to be functioning."

"Yeah I guess you're right and I don't want to end up doing anything to embarrass myself any worse." she replied as Starscream lowered his hand to let her down. Eva hesitated a moment mentally arguing with her self and cursing Skywarp and Thundercracker for their pointless arguing that had left them so far away from her. She finally looked up at Starscream, "Do you think I could sleep out here? I just don't want to be alone after having that nightmare, I'd never be able to sleep." she said

"Of course." Starscream replied then leaned back a little farther against the trees as the glass over his cockpit retracted and the seat laid back and then shifted and extended until it filled the cockpit to make a comfortable place for Eva to sleep.

Eva smiled, "Well that's a neat trick." she said as she climbed off of his hand and into the cockpit, "Thanks." she said as she laid down and started to fall asleep.

"You're welcome." Starscream replied as he rested his hand over her.

* * *

Eva was woken a about an hour later by a strong kick from the sparkling and a rather startled gasp from Starscream. Lifting her head far enough to see over the cockpits edge so she could see Starscream's glowing eyes she asked, "What's wrong?"

"Was that the sparkling moving?" he asked sounding a bit shocked.

"Yeah, it seems to like to get really active for a little while in the middle of the night just to make it hard for me to sleep. Sorry if it woke you." Eva replied rolling onto her back so the sparkling wouldn't bother him.

"There's nothing to apologize for." he told her then his holoform suddenly appeared next to her and he rested his hand on her stomach as the sparkling continued to kick and move, "I'm glad it did wake me, it's not something I ever imagined I would get to feel. With Cybertronians only the female can feel the sparkling's movements while it's developing. I was worried about your body being too soft to properly protect the sparkling, but I never thought about the advantages that it offered." he said, a smile spreading across his face as the sparkling delivered a particularly strong kick to his hand.

"Yeah, I guess with your metal bodies-" Eva stopped suddenly fully turning her head to look at Starscream's face.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Your face, you're whole head, it's- different." Eva said.

"That's just because I removed my helmet, it was badly damaged and I wanted to focus my repair systems on my arm, so I removed it until my arm has fully healed and the holoform is currently just programmed to recreate what I currently look like." he explained.

Eva stared at him for a moment longer, suddenly grateful for the nearly full moon as she took in the site of his much more human looking face. A clearly defined nose and a mouth that was obviously capable of a great deal of movement and expression. "I like you better with the helmet on." she finally said.

"And why is that?" Starscream asked.

"Because without it I can't call you ugly because compared to the Autobots I've seen on the news you're not too bad looking and you don't look like a bird of prey without it so I can't call you birdbrain." she replied.

"Well in that case I may just have to leave my helmet off more often." Starscream replied smirking.

Eva just stared at him for a second, it was going to take a while to get use to him being able to show so much emotion with his face and that smirk was almost, sexy in a strange mechanical way she thought then quickly rolled onto her side facing away from him as she began to blush at the thought and wondered if it was caused by her hormones being messed up by the sparkling, "I really should try to get some sleep." she said.

"Of course, you need your sleep." Starscream replied sounding as if he were trying not to start laughing. "Would you mind if I stayed here a while longer until the sparkling settles down?" he asked as his hand slipped back to her stomach.

"As long as you don't do anything to keep it awake or interfere with my sleeping I don't care." Eva replied.

-

"Starscream?" Eva said several minutes later.

"What?" Starscream replied.

"What exactly are the chances of the sparkling surviving after it's born?" she asked.

"It's body is still changing and altering, but at this point I'd say about a forty percent chance that it will live. Although once you factor in the fact that it's father is one of the strongest, most determined Decepticon warriors and it's mother is probably one of the most strong willed and stubborn humans on earth, I'd say that increases it's chance of survival by at least another ten to twenty percent." Starscream told her.

"Am I really it's mother? I mean, since it's part organic does that mean that biologically I really am it's mother?" Eva asked.

"Yes, the nanites merged your blood and tissues into the sparkling to initially make it compatible with your body and it's now being formed by a combination of both our genetic codes as it grows. If it survives you will be the mother of an entirely new race." Starscream told her.

"What will happen to it if it survives?" Eva asked.

"If I can do so it without it's life being put in danger, I will raise it, if not then I'll take it to Optimus Prime, even if we are from different faction he would never allow any harm to come to an innocent life." Starscream told her.

Eva brought her hand down letting it rest on her stomach just above Starscream's for a long moment before she asked, "What if I don't want to give it up, what if I want to raise it? Its my baby too, I should have that chance."

"So when did it go from being a parasitic monster to your baby? When you found out it really is biologically your's?" Starscream asked with just a hint of sarcasm.

"No, the first time I felt it move." Eva replied.

"Very well then, if I can't raise it myself then it will remain with you, although the Autobots will still have to be involved as we'll most likely need their medic to make sure it stays healthy. He's one of the best medics in all of Cybertron and from what I've heard he has also learned a great deal about humans since coming to earth. If I can safely raise it myself chances are I won't be able to take it off the planet. With it's organic half it probably won't be able to survive at the Decepticon base or handle space travel without a great many precautions being taken. I would need someone to take care of it when I have to leave the planet. Since I have no base set up here on earth and there was plenty of room around your home I could set it up near there and simply work out an agreement with Optimus that so long as my brothers and I were the only Decepticons there to consider it a neutral zone." Starscream told her.

"And if the baby can handle being taken into space?" Eva asked.

"It's highly unlikely that that will be a possibility." Starscream replied.

"But if it is, then what happens?" Eva asked.

Starscream hesitated for a long moment, "So long as there is a war going on the sparkling will remain with you, if the war continues for more than two earth years then the sparkling will remain with you until the war ends and it is old enough to make a decision for it's self. I won't take it into space while there are chances of being attached by enemies. If the war does end, then I will still make sure to keep in constant contact and bring it to visit you." Starscream told her.

"How long has this war been going on?" Eva asked.

"Nearly a million earth years, with no sign of it ending so long as Megatron leads." Starscream replied.

"Guess I'll just have to pray that the sparkling can't go into space or that Megatron stays in charge for a while." Eva said as she started to doze off.


	14. Chapter 14

"Aaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwww isn't that just the cutest thing you've ever seen."

Eva moaned a little as she was woken and for a second was aware of the fact that Starscream's holoform had still been laying behind her with his hand still resting on her stomach before he turned it off. "Go away Warp, I'm to tired to deal with you right now, come back in a couple of hours." she said as she curled up so she could pull her bare feet up under the hem of her bathrobe.

"But you two are soooo cute." Skywarp replied.

"Absolutely adorable, although I would love to know how you ended up sleeping out here and with Starscream's holoform even." Thundercracker said.

"I had a nightmare and was kind of freaked out, really didn't want to be alone and you two abandoned me just so you could go argue like a couple of two year olds." Eva replied as she reluctantly sat up, giving up any hope of getting more sleep.

"Okay that explains why you were out here, but what was with Starscream recharging with his holoform activated and his arm around you? If I didn't know you hated him I'd think there was something more going on here." Skywarp said.

Starscream suddenly picked up his helmet that had been sitting on the ground next to him and threw it, bouncing it off of Skywarp's head.

"Hey, I was just being honest, you two looked awfully cozy together." Skywarp said.

Starscream glared at him and picked up a log, he was about to throw it at Skywarp when he suddenly stopped and set it back down, "Fine go a head and be annoying, I just won't tell you why I was using my holoform, at least if you don't know I won't have to share." he told him.

"What do you mean?" Skywarp asked, then looked at Eva, "What's he talking about? What's going on? Please tell me?" he begged.

"After you abandoned me last night so the only person I had around was Starscream and then you kept talking when I said I wanted to go back to sleep? Why should I tell you anything?" Eva asked.

"Because you're a nice sweet little sister who wouldn't want to make me start crying." Skywarp said getting on his knees so he was at eye level with Eva.

"Can you guys even actually cry?" Eva asked.

Skywarp suddenly looked up at Starscream for a second and Starscream just smiled.

"Do you have any idea how irritating that is?" Eva asked.

"What?" Skywarp asked trying to sound innocent and failing.

"Using your comlinks so I won't hear what you're saying to each others." she replied.

"Oh it's nothing, Starscream was just giving me some advice." Skywarp replied as he reached up and started doing something to the edge of his helmet and a moment later removed it to revel his face that wasn't too different from Starscream's.

"Now, pretty, pretty please won't you tell me what's going on?" he asked sticking out his lower lip a bit, making it tremble as large tears began falling from his eyes.

"Fine, I'll tell you," Eva relented, earning a large grin from Skywarp, "after I've gotten dressed and had some breakfast. If you want to know before then see if that face will work on Starscream." she said then climbed onto Starscream's hand so he could set her on the ground.

"Why can't you just tell us now?" Thundercracker asked.

"Because if she told you now she'd never make it inside to eat, you two can wait. I swear you two act more like sparklings than Decepticon warriors everyday you're around her." Starscream said.

"Like you were so much more patient when you found out. It took you a whole what? Three seconds before you had your holoform at my side?" Eva said grinning back at him as she opened the cabin door and the other two started questioning him and desperately trying to get him to tell them what was going on.

-------

As soon as Eva stepped back out of the cabin, half an hour later, Thundercracker and Skywarp had their human holoforms at her side.

"Is it true, is it really possible for us to feel the sparkling move?" Skywarp asked.

"It sounds crazy, but also plausible considering how soft the human body is, although I wouldn't put it past Starscream to make it up just to get us to leave him alone." Thundercracker said.

"Yes, it's true." Eva replied and instantly had two hands pressed to her stomach, "You guys have no concept of personal space do you?"

"I don't feel anything." Thundercracker said.

"Maybe its recharging. Hey little sparkling wake up, uncle Warp wants to play with you." Skywarp said lightly poking Eva's stomach.

"Hey, stop that," Eva said swatting at Skywarp's hand, "I'll let you know when it's awake and moving around. Starscream is right you are acting like a little kid."

"I am not." Skywarp said dropping to the ground with his arms crossed and pouting, then stuck his tongue out at Eva when she started laughing. He then switched his holoform so it looked like his robot body causing her to laugh even more as he continued to pout. He smirked up at her and suddenly his holoform changed to look like Megatron then he flopped onto his stomach and proceeded to kick his legs and pound the ground with his fists while making pitiful sobbing sounds, "I wanna feel the sparkling move." he sobbed causing Starscream and Thundercracker to laugh and Eva to laugh so hard she was doubled over and holding her ribs.

Eva suddenly stopped as she felt the sparkling kick her and glared down at Skywarp, "You did that on purpose, to wake the sparkling."

"Did what?" he asked quickly getting to his feet, changing back to his human holoform and grinning at her.

----

"You know guys the sparkling will still be here later and I would like to go enjoy the nice electricity I have and finish making my new clothes." Eva said half an hour later when the three bot's holoforms were still taking turns feeling the sparkling move.

"Aww, but what if it's asleep later?" Skywarp asked.

"Trust me, it'll wake up and move around many more times before it's born." Eva told him taking a step back as he pouted and reached for her stomach again. She gasped and stiffened slightly when Starscream stepped behind her and wrapped his mechanical arms around her, resting both of his hands over her stomach, blocking the others.

"She's right, why don't you give her a break." Starscream said.

"Hey, no fair, no hogging the sparkling!" Thundercracker said.

"It's my sparkling I can hog it all I want." Starscream replied.

"And it's my body and I say all of you back off." Eva said as she pulled away from him and headed towards the cabin.


	15. Chapter 15

An hour or so later Skywarp walked over to where Starscream was working on a new device and said, "I think there's something wrong with Eva."

"What do you mean? What's wrong?" Starscream asked stopping what he was doing.

"Well she's kind of bouncing around the cabin and acting kind of crazy." Skywarp told him.

"Well why don't you go in and see what's going on?" Starscream asked.

"She didn't get much sleep last night right?" Skywarp asked.

"No she didn't, probably only a few hours, she should probably be taking a nap right now." Starscream replied.

"And she's still going through the whole mood swings thing, and, um- well, you know that bottle of Pepsi she asked me to bring her the other day and then you took it and hid it because you said it wasn't healthy for her?"

"Yes." Starscream replied.

"Well I found it and she said that just one bottle wouldn't hurt anything, but it would help her wake up a bit since she hadn't slept well, so I gave it to her." Skywarp told him.

"Do you have any idea what effect sugar and caffeine can have on some humans?" Starscream demanded.

"Well yeah, that's why I don't want to go in to check on her, but she seemed so desperate and she let me feel the sparkling kick for getting it for her." Skywarp told him.

"Fine, I'll go check on her, but if she tries licking me again you're on money steeling and grocery shopping duty until the sparkling is born." Starscream told him as he headed towards the cabin.

As Starscream activated his holoform and stepped into the cabin he was met with the sound of Caramelldansen blasting through the cabin and Eva dressed in a ridiculously fancy satin and shear skirt that spread a good five feet out around her feet as she spun and danced her way around the sewing table and occasionally stopped to cut out a shirt pattern she had laid out.

"Are you trying to make yourself go deaf?" he asked as he stepped into the room.

"As long as it's not loud enough to distort the sound it's not too loud." Eva replied, "Do you realize how long it's been since the battery on my iPod ran out? I fully intend to listen to music all day long and as loud as I want." she told him.

"So you're not going crazy, you're just sort of having a party in here?" Skywarp asked as he peaked around Starscream.

"Actually going crazy is just about guarantied when I've had very little sleep and lots of caffeine, but that just makes the party more fun." Eva replied.

"Am I invited to this party?" Skywarp asked.

"Of course." Eva replied as she grabbed his hand and they started dancing around the room together.

"You should be resting." Starscream told her.

"Oh quite being such a party pooper and have some fun." Eva said turning her back to him and swinging her hips in time to the music.

"You barely slept last night, you need to rest not be dancing around like some lunatic." Starscream said lowering his voice as the song finally ended.

"Oh lighten up, I'm fine and too wide awake to possibly sit stil- BRAVE UP FIRE J-DECKER!" she suddenly yelled along with the first line of the next song then proceeded to sing along with it as she went back to her dancing and sewing project.

"Do you even understand Japanese?" Starscream asked.

"Only a few dozen words, why?" Eva asked.

"Why are you singing along with or even listening to something you can't understand?" Starscream asked.

"Because it has a good beat and I love the show it's from." Eva replied.

"What's it from?" Skywarp asked.

"Brave Police J-Decker, one of the best and wonderfully romantic cartoons ever." Eva told him.

"According to the internet it's about robots, I thought you said it was romantic." Skywarp said a minute later.

"It is, they're sentient robots and two of them fall in love with human women, well one is a little less canon than the other, but it's obvious they like each other." Eva told him.

"And you like that?" Skywarp asked.

"Absolutely, I love human nonhuman romances, they're so much more interesting and romantic. Just to admit to being in love with someone so different would mean they'd have to be so in love that they didn't care about what anyone else thought. Being willing to risk the disapproval of other people and even their family to be with the one they love, it's just so romantic." Eva said.

"Well if you like that type of thing so much why don't you just marry Skywarp, you two certainly get along well enough." Starscream said.

"Ewww." Eva and Skywarp both replied.

"She's like a sister to me." Skywarp said.

"Yeah, Warp my be the most fun brother in the universe, but I wouldn't want to marry him." Eva added.

"Well you two have fun, some of us have real work to do." Starscream said before turning off his holoform.

"Not to mention if you were going to marry one of us you'd probably go for Screamer." Skywarp said sounding completely serious.

"What?." Eva exclaimed looking at him as if he had lost his mind.

"Well you two were getting awfully cozy this morning." Skywarp said.

"I was freaked out because I dreamt that you had all been killed right in front of me and I was about to be killed too. I just didn't want to be alone and you and Thundercracker weren't around, I didn't have any choice." Eva said.

"He also said you forgave him for putting the sparkling in you, or at least you admitted to understanding why he did and that's practically the same thing."

"So? Just because I understand someone doesn't mean I'm going to marry them or even like them." Eva told him.

"Well what about how you reacted to the smirk?" Skywarp asked.

"The smirk?" Eva asked raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, the smirk, the one that has left hundreds of femmes chasing after Screamer. He said he smirked at you last night and you were totally turned on by it." Skywarp said.

"What? That's absolutely not true." Eva replied.

"Okay fine, he said you were a little turned on, that you had to have been liking what you were seeing. And don't try denying it, he wouldn't have been bragging about it if he wasn't completely sure. Common, you can tell your little brother anything." Skywarp said.

"I'm pregnant and my hormones are all messed up, that's all there is to it. Remember up until yesterday I hated him?" Eva asked.

"Unless you've secretly been starting to like him and just wouldn't let yourself admit it." Skywarp said.

"Warp, give it up, I'd be more likely to start dating you or TC than Starscream." Eva said.

"Okay, whatever you say." Skywarp replied then got a mischievous glint in his eyes and started to open his mouth to say something.

"So Starscream used to be quite a ladies man among your kind?" Eva asked successfully cutting him off.

"Well not exactly, he was voted the sexiest mech in school in what would be similar to human's high school and collage and he got sort of an ego about it. He'd show off for the femmes a bit, especially after he over heard several of the femmes talking about how sexy they thought he was, especially when he smirked and thus was born the Starscream smirk of doom."

"Smirk of doom?" Eva asked.

"Yep," Skywarp said clearing his throat and then in a high pitched voice, "It's called the smirk of doom because once you see it you'll be doomed to forever chase after him yet never have a chance of catching him."

Eva couldn't help giggling then asked, "No chance of catching him, why did he already have a girlfriend?"

"Yep, two of them actually one was named science room 415 and the other was the department for the study of extraterrestrial worlds. He could have had any femme he wanted, but he was a total geek, all he cared about was studying. As far as I can remember he only ever went out on one date, afterwards he said it had been a waste of time and if Primus wanted him to find a bond mate he'd have to put her in the science lab with him or on an exploration trip with him, so he could get to know her while they worked. He was always studying, he'd be the first one at school in the morning and the last one to leave in the evening, he'd just hang out with the teachers or do experiments and study. " Skywarp told her.

"So how did he end up involved in the war?" Eva asked.

"Well there's sort of two classes of Cybertronians, those who can fly and those who can't, most of the time there's this natural division, the non flyers are more into sciencey stuff, teaching, building things, that kind of thing and the flyers are more into fighting and exploring and stuff like that. Well if you have someone who wants to do something that's unusual, like a flyer wanting to be a scientist then the non flyers would making it harder on them. It wasn't like it wasn't allowed or anything and Starscream said most of the teachers were nice to him, and obviously all the femmes loved him, but there was one teacher who pretty much flat out told Starscream he'd never really be able to understand science and would never be able to accomplish anything with what he learned."

"We'd have to disagree with that assumption." Eva said resting her hand on her stomach.

"Yeah, he's proven them all wrong, although most of them didn't live long enough to find that out. He complained to the head of the school about what the teacher had said, but nothing was done about it. It was shortly after that, that he received an award for getting the highest grades in the school. Well the bot who had previously won that honor and become pretty popular because of it wasn't happy about his title being taken or the fact that Starscream had become so popular among the femmes, so he got a bunch of his friends together and beat Starscream up pretty badly after school that day. That's when Megatron showed up and helped fight them off, then he told Starscream that he was going to start a rebellion, that he would take over and make sure all bots were treated equally and that anyone who didn't treat others equally, even those who were different from them, would be punished."

"At first Starscream refused, but eventually he agreed that if the ones who had attacked him weren't properly punished for what they had done then he would join Megatron. When Starscream told the school what had happened the bots who had attacked him were scolded in front of the whole school, but that was it even though other bots had been suspended or even kicked out of the school for starting fights. So Starscream ended up joining Megatron and TC and I followed him. It wasn't until years later that we realized all Megatron really cared about was becoming more powerful, taking over all of Cybertron and enslaving anyone who resisted." Skywarp told her.

"Why not just leave if you didn't agree with what you were fighting for?" Emily asked.

"Because nine out of ten Deceptions who tried to switch sides or even just stop fighting and become neutrals were hunted down and brought back, then horribly tortured to death. By the time the Decepticon forces had lost enough soldiers that there weren't enough left to send after deserters Starscream was already second in command and planning to kill Megatron and take over, so we stayed, waiting for the perfect moment to take Megatron out and put an end to the war."

"You really think it would be that easy to end the war if Starscream took command?" Eva asked.

"Yes, because Optimus Prime would most likely agree with what we originally thought we were fighting for." Skywarp told her.

The door suddenly opened and Starscream's holoform walked into the cabin, "Skywarp I need you to go get me some more supplies."

"Why can't TC do it? We're busy." Skywarp asked.

"Because Thundercracker is helping me get the last few parts put together, it's a delicate project and he won't goof off while he's helping me like you would. It'll be finished faster if you go and Thundercracker stays here. I've been working on this on and off since we came here and I'm getting impatient to see if it will work." Starscream replied.

"Oh alright." Skywarp replied then turned back to Eva, "Try not to have too much fun without me."

"Okay, we'll have a big, loud party when you get back." Eva told him before his holoform disappeared.


	16. Note

Originally I was going to wait and add this at the beginning of the next chapter, but since I'm taking forever to get it finished and someone asked, but wasn't signed in, so I couldn't reply directly to them and I thought other people might be curious too, the Brave Police J-Decker episodes with English subtitles can be found on my Deviantart journal titled New Brave Police Episodes and currently includes links to the first 37 episodes, the rest are currently in the process of being subbed. My home page link will take you to my Deviantart page, go to the bottom of the current journal and click on previous journals then look for the one with the right title.

I'll try to get this updated soon, life has just been one thing after another and 3 of my other stories have been taking over my mind lately, but I know all the major scenes right up to the end of this story, I just have to fill in between the major events, but I promise this story will get finished.


	17. Chapter 17

I'm back! After months of writer's block I'm finally writing again, it just took a trip to my great grandfather's farm where there's no TV or internet and not much to do on rainy days other than write. Thank you to everyone who has continued to favorite and review the story, especially Angel's Anthem and TheHellIKnow who's reviews were waiting for me when I got home and motivated me to make this the next story I would update.

Quick update on Brave Police J-Decker, mentioned in the previous chapter, the entire series now has English subtitles and links to all of them can be found on my Deviantart group Brave-Police-Central which there is a link to in the top row on my profile page on DA, which you can get to through my homepage link in my profile. It's a great series for anyone who loves giant transforming robots.

* * *

A little while later Starscream's holoform came into the cabin, "Eva, come out here." he told her.

"Why?" Eva asked as she set down her scissors.

"You'll see." Starscream replied as he led her outside then pointed down the lake shore.

Only a few yards away a mother cougar was laying in the sun near the edge of the lake while three kittens ran around playing together.

"Oh they're adorable, I'm so glad you showed them to me." Eva said as tears started to well up in her eyes.

"If you're so glad why do you look like you're about to start crying?" Starscream asked.

"I just miss my cats so much, who knows what's happened to them with no one there to feed them." she said as tears began to pour down her cheeks.

"I'm sure they're fine. Now you should go back inside, Skywarp isn't back yet, Thundercracker went after another piece we needed and I need to get back to work." Starscream told her.

"Why can't I just stay out here?" Eva asked.

"Because I don't want that cougar noticing you and attacking you if you get too close." Starscream replied.

"I want to watch them, I'll just go sit on my rock and watch them from there, I promise I won't go anywhere near them." Eva told him.

"Alright, but if they come this way you are to call me right a way." Starscream relented.

"Fine." Eva replied before heading over to her rock.

Eva watched the cougars until they finally left and she dozed off.

She was woken a while later by movement nearby, but it wasn't enough to truly wake her, just enough that she was aware someone was there.

A moment later a hand lightly rested on her stomach, "I want you to come out of there strong and healthy, we've all gone through so much to keep you alive, you have to fight, you have to live. I couldn't bear to lose you and neither could your mother. I know she seemed to hate you at first, but that was my fault, now when I look in her eyes, I can tell she loves you just as much as I do, maybe even more. And your uncles can't wait to meet you, I can't remember them ever being this excited about anything since we were sparklings. So you have to survive, there's so many people who love you and want to meet you and hold you, you just have to survive." Starscream whispered to the sparkling which responded by lightly kicking at Starscream's hand.

"I swear you'll never have to live through war, I'll put an end to it no matter what it takes. You'll grow up in a peaceful, safe, happy world. You'll be loved and cared for, I'll do anything for you, just stay strong and live." Starscream whispered, his voice seeming to waver a bit towards the end.

Eva cracked an eye open just enough to see Starscream's face and any remnants of distrust and hatred for him that hadn't been worn away after the events of the last few days vanished at the site of the obvious desperation on his face and the tears that were slowly falling from his eyes.

Debating what to do for a second Eva finally reached down and rested her hand over Starscream's, "It's going to be alright, he's strong, he'll be alright." she said.

"Eva, you're- how long have you been awake?" Starscream asked sounding horrified and embarrassed as he stepped back and made a failed attempt to subtly wipe the tears from his face.

Eva smiled at him, "Long enough to know that under all that metal you're really a big old softy and I think if you let that side out a little more often you might actually make good father." she told him.

"You really think-" he suddenly stopped his eyes widening for a second before his holoform disappeared.

The next thing Eva knew the ground was shaking as Starscream ran over to the machine he had been working on and started making adjustments to it. She started to walk over to him, but was stopped when he turned to look at her, "Go back to the cabin." he told her.

"Why, what's going on?" she asked beginning to worry that Megatron might be coming back.

"I'll explain later, right now I have to get this thing up and running and I don't want you nearby if anything goes wrong." Starscream told her.

Eva wanted to demand that he tell her what was going on, but the urgency in his voice had her heading back to the cabin as quickly as she could manage.

She watched from the window as Starscream started up the machine, the solar panels that were attached to it turning to catch the sun. He then disconnected the main power line that ran into the cabin and attached it to the machine as well.

After nearly half an hour of waiting and fifteen minutes of watching Starscream pacing and stopping every once in a while to check something on the machine Eva decided she couldn't stand it any more and stepped outside then hesitantly walked over to Starscream, "Can you tell me what's going on yet?" she asked.

Before Starscream could answer they heard an engine approaching and Thundercracker flew into sight and landed faster than Eva had ever seen before.

A second later Thundercracker's holoform climbed out of his cockpit carrying a waffle maker.

"How is it doing?" Starscream asked.

"She's hanging in there, but just barely." Thundercracker replied.

"She? You mean the waffle maker is a transformer?" Eva asked.

"Yes, a sparkling, but her energy levels are dangerously low." Starscream replied as he opened a compartment on the machine and reached in, pulling his hand out with one finger now covered in some type of pink liquid. He quickly scanned it then tasted it, "Its not the best, but it'll do." he said glancing up as Skywarp flew in, "Thundercracker, go get a funnel, we don't dare risk losing even a drop." he told him as he activated his holoform and took the sparkling.

"That's really a sparkling?" Eva asked as she looked at the waffle maker.

"Yes." Starscream replied running a scan on the sparkling then gently pressing an area on it that seemed to cause it to transform slowly into a small robot.

Skywarp's holoform ran over to them carrying several glass baby bottles, "How is she?" he asked.

"She should be alright once we get some energon into her." Starscream replied, "Hold her for a minute." he said as he handed the sparkling to Eva.

Eva hesitantly took the sparkling and cradled it in her arms, it didn't move or make a sound, if it weren't for it's dimly glowing red eyes she wouldn't have even been sure it was alive.

As soon as Thundercracker returned Starscream opened a valve on the side of the machine and started to fill the bottle with the pink fluid, but it ran out when the bottle was barely half full.

"It's not much, but it's better than nothing." Starscream said as he took the sparkling back and gave it the bottle, "Now where on earth did you two find her?"

"We were just outside of Tranquility when we picked up her signal, it was so weak if we had been a yard off in either direction we probably would have missed it." Thundercracker told him.

"That must mean she's a survivor from the batch that Bumblebee attacked." Starscream said.

"Wait a minute, isn't Bumblebee one of the Autobots?" Eva asked.

"Yes." Starscream replied.

"One of the Autobots you want to get involved with my sparking and he was attacking a sparkling?" Eva demanded.

"Based on the report I intercepted, an Allspark fragment brought several appliances to life, they started running around and attacked a couple humans, who they would have viewed as monsters that for all they knew would have killed them. Bumblebee attacked and killed them to protect the humans instead of taking the time to try to communicate with them and get them calmed down. Based on the report Optimus Prime wasn't pleased, but never punished him, although the Fallen's attack on earth happened shortly after that and the whole incident seems to have been forgotten." Starscream explained, "He was just too quick to protect the humans, I'm sure it would be perfectly safe to take our sparkling to the Autobots. Anyways we would be dealing with Optimus before any of the other Autobots even find out about the sparkling."

"You'd better be right, because if they hurt my baby after everything I've been through, I'll kill you and them." Eva told him.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't leave the two of you with them until I was absolutely sure it was safe." Starscream assured her, "Now take her back to the cabin with you while I get the last few pieces attached to the energon generator so it will work faster and I can get the power for the cabin hooked back up." Starscream said as the sparkling finished the bottle and he handed her to Eva.

"What am I supposed to do with her?" Eva asked as the sparkling started to make weak chirping sounds.

"Just hold her and try to keep her calm until I can get her more energon. From what I've found online taking care a sparkling isn't that different from caring for a human baby. I'm sure you'll be fine with her while I finish this up." Starscream told her.

"Alright." Eva replied less than confidently then headed to the cabin.

An hour later the power came back on in the cabin and Starscream's holoform came in carrying a full bottle of energon and a small box.

"Thank goodness, I was beginning to worry that you would take too long." Eva said as she plucked the bottle from his hand and started to feed the sparkling, "She kept crying, or whatever those chirping noises were that she was making then stopped that and stopped moving about fifteen minutes ago."

"It takes a while to make energon, but from now on we should have enough to keep her fed. And yes the chirping was crying." Starscream told her, "I could take her for a while." he added.

"That's okay, I'm fine with her. She really is a sweet, adorable little thing." Eva said then noticed Starscream smiling at her, "What?" she asked.

"I was just thinking that I couldn't have kidnapped a better mother for my sparkling if I had tried. You may be the biggest pain in the aft next to Skywarp, but your maternal instinct, even for an infant of a different species makes it clear that my sparkling will be well cared for." he replied.

"Our sparkling, it's not just your's anymore." Eva said then added, "Thank you, I just hope you're right."

"I'm absolutely sure that I am." Starscream told her, "Now it's my turn to hold the sparkling."

Eva grinned, "No, I've got her, you can go get back to work on whatever you have planned next." she replied.

"I don't have anything planned at the moment and I want to hold the sparkling, I'm sure you could use a break." he said.

"Hmm, no I don't think I need a break." Eva replied.

"You're not going to give her up are you?" Starscream asked.

"Nope, you could try getting down on your knees and begging though." Eva replied.

"I don't beg, how about a trade?"

"What do you have to trade?" Eva asked.

"This." Starscream said holding up the box he had carried in.

"What's in it?" Eva asked.

"Just a little something I had Skywarp pick up from your farm while he was out." Starscream said as he opened the box and a dark brown kitten popped it's head out of the box.

"Mary!" Eva exclaimed hesitating only a moment before handing the sparkling to Starscream and scooping up the kitten, "Oh I've missed you so much." she said as she pet the kitten, "I can't believe out of all the cats running around the far that he managed to get my favorite one. Thank you."

"Actually I told him to get that one, you were holding her and talking to her before I took you." Starscream told her, "I wish I had been there to watch Skywarp trying to catch her though, from what I was hearing over the comlink, even with a human holoform he had a hard time catching them and kept ending up with the wrong one."

"Are you talking about me?" Skywarp asked as he stepped into the room.

"Yep, he was just telling me how much trouble you went through to bring me this kitten." Eva said.

"Well I couldn't say no, Starscream said you really missed your cats and that having one of them here should cheer you up and you know I'd do anything for my little sister." Skywarp told her.

"Aww, you're such a good brother. Thank you for bringing her to me." Eva said.

"You're welcome. Now is it m turn to hold the sparkling?"

"No." Starscream replied.

"Starscream, share the sparkling." Eva told him.

"Oh, alright." Starscream relented and passed the now sleeping sparkling to Skywarp.

"Oh my gosh, I did not just see what I think I saw, did I?" Thundercracker asked from the doorway.

"What?" Starscream asked.

"You're taking orders from a human." Thundercracker said.

"You're right, he did." Skywarp said.

"I did not, I just decided you had earned getting to hold the sparkling because you caught the kitten and brought it back." Starscream insisted.

"Sure, that's why you only handed her over after Eva told you to." Thundercracker said grinning.

"You're wrong and I don't have time to argue with you, I have work to do." Starscream said before his holoform disappeared.

A moment later, Eva, Skywarp and Thundercracker all broke out laughing, "At least now we know who's really in charge around here." Skywarp said.


	18. Chapter 18

Happy Easter everyone and thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, you kept me focused on this story.

* * *

The next morning Eva found Starscream's holoform sitting in a rocking chair in the main room of the cabin with the sparkling curled up asleep on his chest, both of his hands wrapped protectively over her.

"_He looks so sweet and caring, it's hard to believe he's the same guy who ripped me open without a care as to how badly he hurt me and totally turned my life upside down." _Eva thought as she slipped passed him to get some breakfast.

A little while later the sparkling woke up and started chirping, waking Starscream, "So how is she doing?" Eva asked.

"Much better and nearly recovered." Starscream replied as he walked over and set the sparkling in Eva's lap, then his holoform disappeared. A few minutes later he walked back in with a bottle of energon, took her back and sat down to feed her.

"So what's going to happen to her now, will you tell Megatron about her." Eva asked.

"No, we'll keep her a secret for as long as possible, I won't allow anymore innocent lives to get involved in the war and that's all Megatron cares about." Starscream replied.

"Good, because you really look adorable with her." Eva told him.

"I'm a Decepticon warrior, I am not adorable, I'm fierce, powerful, terrifying-"

"And you have a major soft spot for kids and turn into a big old softy around them. Get me a camera so I can get a picture next time you fall asleep with her on your chest, then you'll see that there's no denying how cute you look with her. Better yet get me a video camera so I can get it on tape next time you're talking to our sparkling." Eva said.

"No, and you are never to tell anyone about yesterday." Starscream told her.

"Why not? I thought it was really sweet." Eva asked.

"Because I have a reputation to keep up and if anyone ever heard about that I'd never hear the end of it." Starscream replied.

"So you have to maintain you image, but you admit that's all it is and deep down you're a big softy?" Eva asked.

Starscream hesitated a moment, "Only when it comes to sparklings, but that's it." he told her, "And if you ever tell anyone that I admitted that I'll shoot you after the sparkling is born."

"Don't worry, you're secret is safe with me, unless I ever need to blackmail you." Eva replied, then asked, "So what are we going to name her?"

"I was thinking about Skydancer." Starscream replied with a hint of sadness in his voice.

"That sounds like a pretty name, where did you come up with it?" Eva asked.

"It was my mother's name. I just hope she'll grow up to be like her." Starscream said.

"What was she like?"

"She hated the war, always said there had to be a way to fix things without fighting. She begged me not to join Megatron, she only met him once, but that was enough for her to realize how evil and power hungry he was. She always had this ability to tell what people were really like and she was always right, but I was young and stupid and wouldn't listen to her. Then I dragged my brothers into the war before I realized she was right, by then there was no getting out, Megatron would kill anyone who tried to leave, I ruined my life as well as their's." Starscream told her.

"I think you're wrong, how many Cybertronians are there still around?" Eva asked.

"Probably only a couple hundred as far as I know." Starscream replied.

"And how many were there before the war?"

"About a few billion." Starscream replied.

"So if you hadn't made the decisions you did there's a good chance you and your brothers would all be dead and there wouldn't be anyone around with the guts to challenge Megatron and try to put an end to the war before you go extinct. Not to mention, didn't you say the reason the sparklings were dieing and you needed me was because you didn't have enough energon and now you've discovered a way to make it, which means you have single handedly found a way to make it possible to prevent the extinction of your kind? How many other surviving Cybertronians could have done that?" Eva asked.

"Very few if any." Starscream replied.

"You may have made the wrong decision back then, but in the end I have a feeling it's going to work out for the best."

"I guess you're right, if it weren't for me, we would be doomed to extinction." Starscream said with confidant smirk.

Eva got up, carrying her dishes to the sink while mentally cursing his smirk that sent a swarm of butterflies through her stomach, "Well at least your ego is still intact." she said as she started washing the dishes.

A moment later Skywarp's holoform walked into the cabin, "So how's the little one doing?" he asked.

"She's doing fine and I've decide to name her Skydancer." Starscream replied.

"I think that's perfect for her." Skywarp said as he swiftly, but gently swept her out of Starscream's arms, "I'll hold her, I think you need to go check on the energon generator, I though I heard it making a funny noise."

"Fine, but I'd better not find out you were messing around near it and damaged it." Starscream said before his holoform disappeared.

"So how are you doing this morning?" Skywarp asked.

"Fine." Eva replied.

"Enjoying the view while Starscream was in here?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" Eva asked although she was sure her cheeks were already turning red.

"TC and I have been watching through the window, we saw you two talking and were making bets on how long it would be before you started arguing or getting sarcastic with each other. You certainly seem to be under the spell of the smirk of doom." Skywarp said.

"I am not." Eva replied.

"That's why you had to look away so quickly and busy yourself with something else as soon as he smirked and I had to come in here and rescue you by getting him out of here?" Skywarp asked.

"You came in here just because you could tell I was uncomfortable?" Eva asked.

"Yep."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. I was right though, wasn't I?" Skywarp asked.

"No, well, I don't know." Eva finally said.

"You don't know?"

"No, I- you have to swear you'll never tell anyone, not even Thundercracker." Eva finally told him, desperate to talk to someone about it.

"Alight, I swear, as you're best big brother that I'll never tell anyone whatever you're about to tell me." Skywarp said.

Eva let out a sigh as she sat down at the table, "I just really don't know what I'm feeling anymore. I do find him rather attractive with that more human looking body and without his helmet on and that smirk, well it is rather sexy. He's a giant alien robot though and he ripped me open with no regard for how much pain he caused me and I'm sure he's killed humans without a second thought before. But then over this last week, him taking that beating from Megatron to save my life and hearing him actually admit he was protecting me and not just the sparkling and realizing how much he truly cares about the sparkling and seeing him with Skydancer. I just can't hate him anymore and don't know that I wouldn't have done the same thing if I were in a situation where my entire race was going extinct and I had the ability to stop it. I'm just not sure how much of what I'm feeling is real and how much of it is because of my hormones being messed because of being pregnant. It was so much easier to just hate him."

"Aww, don't worry," Skywarp said resting a reassuring hand on her shoulder, "I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually, you have a while before the sparkling will be born and after it's born to figure out what you're feeling. I suppose if you don't hate him anymore it means you won't be needing any more super glue, feathers and glitter?" Skywarp asked.

"Well, maybe regular glue instead of super glue, but even if it was for the survival of your kind I'm still suffering because of him and he hasn't quite paid enough for it yet." Eva replied with a smile.

"Great, because I snuck you in a couple more bags, along with some paints." Skywarp told her.

"Perfect, as long as he keep using his holoform to sleep in here with Skydancer all I'll have to do is get up extra early." Eva said then asked, "Do you think you could pick something else up for me?"

"Anything for you, what do you need?"

"A camera to get a picture of my work and maybe a few pictures of him with Skydancer, they're so cute together." Eva told him.

"Okay, I'll get you one next time I'm out." Skywarp assured her.

A few hours later Eva had been sewing while Skydancer slept on the couch, but when Eva looked back at the couch she was gone. After doing a thorough search of the house and finding the front door unlatched she ran outside and called Starscream over.

"I can't find Skydancer, she was asleep on the couch one minute and gone the next and the door wasn't latched." Eva told him in a panic.

"It's alright, don't panic, I'm sure she's fine, she's survived this long on her own, we just have to figure out where she's hiding. She'll be fine." Starscream assured her before calling Thundercracker and Skywarp over to help look for her.

After nearly half an hour Skywarp called, "I found her."

Everyone ran over to find him looking into a tall tree a moment later Starscream carefully reached in and pulled her out then passed her to Eva who had still been panicked that something bad had happened to her, "See I told you she'd be just fine." he told her.

"How on earth did she get up there?" Eva asked as Skydancer started to squirm until Eva finally had to set her down.

As soon as her feet touched the ground she took off up another tree, "She can walk and climb trees?" Eva asked in amazement.

"Yes, compared to how humans age I'd say she's a toddler." Starscream told her.

"Are all sparklings able to do so much, didn't you say she's only about two months old?" Eva asked.

"No, sparklings that are carried by a mother are born as helpless as a human baby, ones that are created by the Allspark can be brought to life at different stages of development. Now that she's regained her strength I'd say she's going to be a bit of a handful and definitely a flyer." Starscream told her.

"A flyer, you mean like you three?" Eva asked.

"Yep." Skywarp replied, "I get to give her, her first flying lesson."

"How do you know she's a flyer, it doesn't look like she has wings or anything." Eva asked.

"She won't get a new alt mode and wings until she's older, but one thing all flyers have in common is a love of heights from the very beginning." Starscream told her.

"Okay, so if she get's outside again she's your responsibility because I don't think I can climb trees anymore." Eva said.

"Yes, you are to stay safely on the ground and leave catching her to TC, Warp and I." Starscream told her.


	19. Chapter 19

The next few months seemed to fly by as much of everyone's time was spent looking after Skydancer. She seemed to be completely fearless, disappearing up trees, into the rafters of the cabin and she seemed to have decided that Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp were her own personal jungle gyms.

Eva on the other hand was getting around less and less easily as the sparkling and her belly grew. Luckily for her and Starscream the morning sickness had passed, Eva had come to understand why Starscream had done what he did to her and had mostly forgiven him for it, except for when she was suffering or uncomfortable. Which meant when she got sick he had still been targeted and he had suffered a few more run ins with glue and craft supplies, but Eva had been nice enough to switch from super glue to regular glue so it wouldn't take him quite as long to get the stuff off.

"Is she asleep?" Starscream asked as his holoform stepped into the cabin.

"Yes." Eva replied from where she was sitting in front of the fireplace rocking Skydancer.

"Good, I'll put her in bed and then we can discus the plan for contacting Optimus." Starscream said as he gently took Skydancer from Eva and carried her into the bedroom.

A moment later Skywarp and Thundercracker came into the cabin, "So how are we going to get close enough to Optimus to talk to him without a bunch of the other Autobots attacking us or Megatron finding out?" Skywarp asked as Starscream came back into the room.

"I thought we'd leave that to you." Starscream replied.

"What exactly do you want me to do?" Skywarp asked.

"Warp Optimus here, it'll get him here alone and we already have a signal blocker up so the other Autobots won't be able to track him." Starscream said.

"How do we get him close enough for Warp to warp him here?" Thundercracker asked.

"There's a small town about twenty miles from here, we'll attack it, take a few hostages and hold them about ten miles from here, outside of the signal blockers. Optimus will come to save the humans and that's when we'll take him. If Megatron finds out about the attacks we can just tell him Skywarp was getting board." Starscream said.

"You're not going to hurt anyone, are you?" Eva asked.

"No, we'll just do some minor damage and try not to hurt anyone." Starscream replied.

"Alright then." Eva said.

"So once I get him here we tell him what's going on, get him to protect Eva, then we kill Megatron and all live happily ever after, right?" Skywarp asked.

"Basically, yes." Starscream replied, "And you," he said looking at Eva, "will stay out of sight until I explain to him what's going on."

"I guess I could do that. So when will we put this plan into motion?" Eva asked.

"Tomorrow. Megatron has mentioned wanting to come see if you show him proper respect now that the mood swings should have passed and I don't want to give him a chance to run any scans on the sparkling, it's become much easier to detect that it's part organic since the last time he was here." Starscream said.

Early the next morning Thundercracker left and a little while later Eva could here explosions in the distance, "You're sure he won't hurt anyone?" she asked.

"I doubt it, he's being careful and only attacking roads or abandoned buildings with no sign of life in them." Starscream replied.

"Okay, I'd hate to think of anyone getting hurt, especially with it only being a couple of weeks until Christmas." she said pulling her heavy fleece lined cape more firmly around her, "Why exactly did Thundercracker go when you said if Megatron finds out that you'll tell him it was Skywarp?"

"Because Skywarp has been here almost the whole time since he came to earth, so the Autobots shouldn't know he's here. I want to keep it that way until we take Optimus, that way we have the additional element of surprise." Starscream replied, "Now, you need to get back inside, it's too cold out here for you." he told her.

"I'm fine and it's so pretty out with the snow, I'm sure I'll be fine for a little while longer." Eva replied.

"Pretty and cold, you're going back inside." Starscream told her.

Eva let out a startled yelp as Starscream picked her up and carried towards the cabin, "Put me down." she demanded.

"Not this time, I give in to you too much as it is, this time you're going to do what I say." Starscream told her as he set her on the porch, "Anyways, you should go check on Skydancer."

Eva glared at him for a moment before finally stepping into the cabin. She was greeted by a chirp from Skydancer who was safely locked up in a large cage or as Eva preferred to think of it, a playpen for a baby who could climb walls.

Within an hour Starscream came in to let Eva know that everything was going according to plan. Thundercracker had taken a few human hostages and was holding them in a cave where they would be safe and reasonably warm until the Autobots came.

By morning Starscream had picked up the Autobot's signals as they were driving to the town, "Alright Warp, this is it, are you ready?" Starscream asked.

"Yep." Skywarp replied, taking one last look at where the signals were coming from then disappeared.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, sending him after Optimus alone?" Eva asked.

"He'll be fine, he may act like a sparkling around you, but he's as fierce and mature a warrior as any other Decepticon. And this mission won't even require any fighting if he does it fast enough, all he has to do is warp in, grab Optimus and warp them both back here." Starscream said then smiled, "Mission complete." he said as Skywarp reappeared over the lake, dropping a red and blue semi into the lake as Starscream activated the signal scrambler that would prevent him from contacting anyone over his comlink.

Optimus stood up and walked far enough out of the lake so that he was only knee deep in the water, "What is the meaning of this?" he asked pulling out a large gun as he looked around at the three seekers at the edge of the lake.

"We don't want to fight, just talk." Starscream told him.

"If you just wanted to talk why kidnap me and separate me from my men then?" Optimus asked.

"Because if Megatron finds out what I'm trying to do he'll kill me." Starscream replied.

"Very well I'll listen, but first I need to know about something." Optimus said.

"What's that?" Starscream asked.

"A human woman by the name of Eva Hansen disappeared five months ago, we have reason to suspect you and Thundercracker were involved. I want to know where she is and why you took her." Optimus said.

"How could you possibly know about her?" Starscream asked.

"A note was found at her home saying that she was being kidnapped and it mentioned your names as well as something about a sparkling." Optimus told him.

Thundercracker chuckled, "I told you letting her out of your sight wasn't a good idea." he said to Starscream.

"Where is she? Is she still alive?" Optimus asked.

"She's fine." Starscream said then turned to glare at Eva where she was hiding behind a large tree.

"Don't glare at me, I was scared to death at the time, you didn't really think I wouldn't try to find someway to let someone know what was going on, did you?" Eva asked as she stepped out from behind the tree and walked over to Starscream.

"At that time it never crossed my mind that you would try anything since Thundercracker was blocking any outside communication. If I had realized at the time how much alike we think I would have realized you would come up with some way to let others know what was going on and I never would have allowed you anywhere near the house." Starscream replied as he picked her up.

"What have you done to her?" Optimus asked shock evident in his voice

"Exactly what your scans are no doubt indicating. I had begun cloning Decepticons in order to build up our dwindling army, but part way through the sparklings development we ran out of energon and they started dieing until only one sparkling remained and I swore I wouldn't allow it to die without doing everything in my power to save it. That's why I attempted to kidnap Chromia, I needed a femme to carry it to keep it alive, when that didn't work out I had all but given up when we flew over Eva's farm. I knew it was crazy and nearly impossible that it would survive in a human, but I couldn't just watch it die without exhausting every possible option. As you can see, so far it's survived although there's no way of knowing yet if it can survive once it's born due to some complications." Starscream explained.

"You are alright, they haven't hurt you?" Optimus asked Eva.

"I'm fine, I was terrified at first, but in all honesty they've suffered far worse than I have." Eva replied.

"Yeah, Starscream suffered particularly badly, you should see what she can do with a couple bags of feathers, glitter and super glue." Skywarp said laughing, "I think he's still trying to get all the glitter off of his wings." he suddenly became serious again when Starscream glared at him.

"You glued glitter and feathers to a Decepticon?" Optimus asked Eva.

"I pretty much hated Starscream for about the first month I was here and knew he wouldn't do anything to hurt me as long as the sparkling was alive, so he suffered quite a bit that first month." Eva replied.

"But you no longer hate him?" Optimus asked.

"No, not at all." Eva replied.

"Why?"

"He saved my life when he already knew the sparkling would never be accepted by the Decepticons and that if Megatron ever found out about the sparkling not being fully Cybertronian he would try to kill me again. It made me really think about what Starscream had done and why and in the end if I was faced with the extinction of my entire race while watching an innocent infant die I don't know that I wouldn't have done the same thing if given the chance." Eva replied.

"What exactly is there about the sparkling that would make Megatron want it dead?" Optimus asked.

"Let me data burst you the information, it'll be faster than trying to explain it." Starscream said.

A moment later Optimus said. "Its part organic and you still protect it?"

"Part organic or not its still my clone, my sparkling and I won't allow anyone to harm it." Starscream replied.

"Why was Megatron trying to kill her if he didn't know about the sparkling being part organic?" Optimus asked.

"Because she basically told him he was the ugliest bot she'd ever seen and that he looked like he had stuck his head in a garbage disposal. It was pretty awesome until Megatron lost his temper." Skywarp told him.

"She said that to Megatron and is still alive? Why on earth would she talk to him like that?" Optimus asked.

"Starscream put up with that type of treatment from her and she just assumed that she would get away with it because of the sparkling. We weren't expecting Megatron to show up and hadn't warned her that he wouldn't care about the sparkling if she made him mad. The only reason she's still alive is because of Starscream stopping him." Thundercracker said.

"You're very lucky to be alive." Optimus told Eva.

"I know." Eva replied.

"Now what is it you want from me?" Optimus asked returning his attention to Starscream.

"Your help defeating Megatron." Starscream replied.

"So that you can take over as leader of the Decepticons?" Optimus asked.

"Yes." Starscream replied.

"Why should I do that? You could be worse than Megatron if you gain control." Optimus said.

"Because this war is over, there are so few of us left that to keep fighting would only ensure a swift extinction for our kind. What good is winning a war if all you gain is surviving to watch your people die out. Megatron is wasting time and lives trying to take revenge on you when we should be working together to find a way to save our race. Megatron refuses to see that and if we don't do something soon there won't be any chance of our kind surviving. If you help me defeat Megatron we can save our race, I've discovered a way to produce energon without causing this planet any damage, but to create the quantities needed to sustain new sparklings I need more resources as well as space to set up the equipment. That will require the cooperation of the humans who have allied themselves with you." Starscream told him.

Optimus seemed to think about it for a moment then looked at Eva, "Do you believe he is sincere in his desire to end the war?" he asked her.

Eva hesitated a moment shocked that he was asking her, "Yes, I believe so and there is no doubt in my mind that the most important thing to him is the survival of your race. I've also seen the energon creating device and he will need human cooperation to obtain the large amount of space he'll need to set it up and it seems peace between the two factions is the only way for him to gain that cooperation." Eva replied.

"Very well then, what can I do to help you?" Optimus asked Starscream.

"Weapons upgrades would be helpful, but ones that won't leave any outward signs of their being added or Megatron could become suspicious. I would also like Ratchet to have a look at Eva and the sparkling, as a medic he has more advanced scanners than I do and may be able to determine the sparklings chances of survival as well as detect any other complications that I can't. I want your word that Eva and the sparkling will be protected at all costs when we attack Megatron. I want her taken to your base and to constantly have at least one Autobot guard with her at all times until Megatron has been killed. Also if you would be willing, some form of battle training from you, you're the only one who has ever been able to hold out against Megatron in a one on one battle for very long." Starscream said.

"I believe all of that can be arranged, although I'll have to discus it with my men, but I'm sure they'll agree." Optimus replied.

"I'd prefer that you didn't tell any more of your men than absolutely necessary until we are ready to launch the attack. Soundwave has been monitoring all comlink communication that isn't set to private lines and the more bots who know about this the more risk of someone saying something and Soundwave picking it up. I'd also like any communication between us done in person here, we'll set a specific time for you to be available for Skywarp to come get you and if I need to discus anything with you then he'll come get you." Starscream told him.

"Alright, for the time being I'll only tell Ratchet so he can come check on Eva and the sparkling and Ironhide as he will be the most knowledgeable as to what weapons upgrades we can provide for you. When do you want to launch this attack?" Optimus asked.

"Immediately after the sparkling is born which should be within the next month or so. Megatron knows that's when it should be born so we'll have to strike quickly before he realizes the complication with the sparkling." Starscream replied.

"Very well, return me and I will explain the situation to Ratchet and Ironhide, they were the ones with me. I assume you don't want us trying to walk here?" Optimus asked.

"No, if Megatron shows up I don't want there to be any sign that you've been here." Starscream replied.

"Then wait about fifteen minutes for me to explain things to the others then Skywarp can bring us back here and we'll work out the details." Optimus said.

"Alright. Skywarp, take him back, just get out of there fast enough that Ironhide doesn't shoot you." Starscream said.

"Don't worry, I'm too fast for old trigger happy." Skywarp said before he grabbed Optimus and disappeared then reappeared alone seconds later, "See, no problem."

"Good. Now Eva I want you back in the cabin before you get chilled." Starscream told her.

"I've never really liked winter, I hate being cold, but you're making me like it even less with your over protectiveness and never letting me out for very long. I can't wait for the sparkling to be born, at least then I won't have to worry about you constantly telling me what to do." Eva said then started to head towards the cabin.

"Pregnant or not I wouldn't let you endanger your health." Starscream said.

Stopping on the cabin porch Eva asked, "Why would it matter to you if I get sick or something after the sparkling is born?"

"Because I don't want to see you end up sick, I don't need to be worrying about you while I'm trying to get rid of Megatron and take over." Starscream replied.

"You'd really be worried about me?" Eva asked.

"Of course I would, I-" he hesitated a moment then quickly recovered, "someone has to look after the sparkling after it's born."

"Sure, it's just because you need a babysitter, it couldn't possibly be that you're getting as attached to me as Thundercracker and Warp." Eva said.

"Yes, I know the sparkling will be safest in your care and if you're sick you won't be able to care for it properly." Starscream replied.

"Whatever you say." Eva said before stepping into the cabin.

"You really are going soft, you know?" Thundercracker said.

"I am not, I'm just doing what's best for the sparkling." Starscream insisted.

"I agree with TC, you're going soft, either that or it's something more serious." Skywarp said.

"Why don't you do something useful and go get the Autobots." Starscream said before walking away.

"You don't think-" Skywarp started to ask.

"No, I think he cares about her as much as we do and doesn't want to admit it, but it couldn't be anything more than that, could it?" Thundercracker asked.

"I don't know, they have been getting along pretty well the last few months." Skywarp pointed out.

"I guess you're right, but I doubt its anything more than that they just learned to tolerate each other." Thundercracker said.

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I'll be back." Skywarp said before disappearing.

A little while later Eva was watching through the window as Starscream talked to Optimus and the two new Autobots that Skywarp had brought back. After a while one of them walked towards the cabin and sat down, a moment later a man who looked to be in his early fifties appeared in the cabin causing Eva to jump back.

"Jeeze, you could have come in the door instead of trying to scare me into labor." Eva said glaring at him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm Ratchet." he said.

"Eva. You're the medic, right?" Eva asked.

"Yes. How have those three been treating you?" he asked then added, "Don't be afraid to tell me the truth, we won't let them hurt you."

"They treated me pretty well at first, but over the last month or so they've started treating me like I'm a fragile china doll, they won't let me go outside alone, they won't let me stay out more than ten minutes since it's started getting cold. and the diet they have me is enough to drive me crazy, it takes tears and threats to get any kind of junk food, except for Warp, he'll sneak me in some chocolate once in a while." Eva told him.

"They haven't hurt you?" Ratchet asked.

"Aside from when Starscream ripped me open to put the sparkling in, no. As long as I don't do anything that could put the sparkling at risk I get away with whatever I want. Well except telling Megatron how ugly and stupid he is, that almost got me killed and got Starscream beaten up pretty badly." Eva said a hint of gilt creeping into her voice.

"You told Megatron he was stupid and ugly and lived?" Ratchet asked in amazement.

"Yeah, I had gotten away with talking like that to Starscream and thought I'd get away with it with Megatron too. He would have crushed me if Starscream hadn't stopped him." Eva told him.

"I can't even imagine Starscream putting up with that, it really is a miracle you're alive." Ratchet told her.

"Not really, they're not that bad once you get to know them. Thundercracker is like a protective big brother and Warp, well he's just more fun than you can imagine, we've done some really fun, horrible things to Starscream." Eva told him.

"What type of things?" Ratchet asked.

"Well last time Warp brought me some paints, glue, glitter and feathers, while Starscream was using his holoform I painted him with lots of pretty flowers and feathered birds. Unfortunately I can't climb very well anymore so I could only do what I could reach from the ground, but if you look closely I think there's still a bit a blue glitter in one of the eyes of his Decepticon symbol from the first time I decorated him." Eva told him.

Ratchet stared at her in shock for a moment then said, "How can you possibly still be alive?"

"Because Starscream would never do anything that would risk hurting the sparkling and honestly at this point I don't think he'd hurt me even if it wouldn't hurt the sparkling." Eva replied.

"I would advise you not to do anything to find out if you're right after the sparkling is born, he's still a Decepticon and they have no respect for human life." Ratchet told her.

"He's different, all three of them are, once Megatron is gone you'll realize that." Eva told him.

"Well, just incase you're wrong I want you to have this." he said handing her a small tube about three inches long and one inch across, on a string, with one end that could be screwed off.

"What is it?" Eva asked.

"It's a deadly poison to Cybertronians, I'm not sure yet what effects it would have on a human though. If I'm not here when you have the sparkling and they do turn on you all you have to do is take off the end and press the button on the other end to pop out the needle and inject it into the wiring through one of the openings in their armor, it will cause paralyzing pain and kill them within a minute. It's not much against three of them, but it's the only thing we have that we can give you without them noticing." Ratchet told her.

"I really won't need this, they'd never hurt me." Eva assured him as she tried to hand it back.

"Keep it, just in case, please." Ratchet said.

"Oh alright." Eva relented as she slipped the string around her neck.

"Don't tell any of them about it, it's been a well guarded Autobots secret for a very long time. The bots who discovered it decided it was to deadly to risk the Decepticons ever finding out about it. All that was ever made were a few small samples and Optimus and I are the only ones left alive who even know about it." Ratchet told her.

"Alright, I won't let them know about it and after the sparkling is born and you see that they'd never hurt me I'll give it back to you." Eva told him.

"Alright. Now would it bother you if I use a holoform that looks like what I really look like? It's the only way I can use my scanners without taking you outside." Ratchet asked

"Of course not, Starscream never uses a human holoform, although he has one that is slightly more human looking and without the helmet, but he only started using that because I couldn't really call him birdbrain without his helmet and, well the rest doesn't matter." Eva said deciding he didn't need to know about her crazy mood swings and the accompanying crazy things she had done.

"Let's see how you and that sparkling are doing then." Ratchet said as his holoform changed and he started to run scans on her.

A little while later Starscream's holoform walked into the cabin, "So how are they doing?" he asked.

"Amazingly well, especially considering what you've done shouldn't have been possible." Ratchet replied.

"What are the sparkling's chances of surviving after it's born?" Starscream asked.

"It looks like it should be able to survive, the Cybertronian and organic organs have merged perfectly and look like they're fully functional at this point, but there's no way to know for sure if it'll survive until we see how it's body reacts after being born." Ratchet told him.

"If it does survive, will it be able to go into space like you guys can?" Eva asked.

"No, it's too organic for that, at least not without all the precautions a normal human would have to take." Ratchet replied.

"Oh thank goodness." Eva sighed in relief.

"Why is that so important?" Ratchet asked.

"Because Starscream promised if it couldn't go into space with him I get to raise it." Eva replied.

"Not that I would have ever had a chance to take it anyways, she's as devious and cunning as I am, she would have found a way to keep it with her no matter what I did." Starscream said.

"That's right." Eva said with a grin, "He would have no chance going up against me."

"It wouldn't have been that easy for you." Starscream said.

"Oh I think it would have been." Eva replied confidently.

Starscream was about to reply when Thundercracker tapped on the roof of the cabin, "You coming back out soon, we've got more details we need to work out."

"We'll finish this later." Starscream said before his holoform disappeared.

When Eva looked back at Ratchet he was just staring at her looking shocked, "What?" she asked.

"You're attracted to him." Ratchet said.

"It's just because my hormones are messed up because of being pregnant." Eva quickly insisted then asked, "If you can tell that does that mean he can too?"

"He might be able to pick up on it, but only if he's specifically scanning you. Since I'm a medic my scanners are constantly picking up on stuff like that. And I'm not buying the messed up hormones story." Ratchet told her.

"Why not? I'm not even sure if it's true or not." Eva asked.

"Because at the moment you're being pregnant isn't having any effect on hormones that would cause that reaction." Ratchet told her.

"So I'm really losing my mind, I'm really falling for a giant alien robot and these feelings aren't going to just go away after the sparkling is born?" Eva said.

"It's highly unlikely. You couldn't figure that out for yourself?" Ratchet asked.

"I- I guess so, I just didn't want to admit it to myself, it's just too crazy. " Eva replied, "You must think I'm completely insane."

"I don't think you're crazy. It does explain why you're so determined that he's not as bad as I think he is, but I think he's changed a lot since the last time I faced him in battle, he's calmer, more patient and I certainly never would have imagined that he'd be attracted to a human," Ratchet told her.

"He does seem to have changed a lot since-" Eva started to reply until what Ratchet had said fully registered, "Wait, attracted to a human?" she asked.

"Yes." Ratchet replied.

"You're sure?"

"Completely." Ratchet told her.

"Optimus says he's ready to leave whenever you are." Skywarp said suddenly appearing in the room then looked at Eva, "He's not being mean to you is he?"

"No, everything is fine." Eva told him.

"Well I'll see you again soon, take it easy." Ratchet told her.

"I will, not that they'd let me do anything other than taking it easy." Eva replied.


	20. Chapter 20

"Hey Eva, are you awake yet?" Skywarp asked.

"No." Eva replied pulling the blankets over her head.

"Are you sure? Because I have a surprise for you."

"What kind of surprise is it that it can't wait until later?" Eva asked.

"One that I think you'll really like, it involves you actually getting to eat cookies and candy without Starscream trying to stop you or at least not trying to stop you until after you've gotten to have some." Skywarp told her.

"Okay, I'm up." Eva said as she struggled to sit up then slipped on her bathrobe, "Alright as long as you're in here, help the fat lady up." she told him.

"You're not fat, just getting closer to being ready to have the sparkling." Skywarp said as he helped her to her feet.

"Not close enough, I don't now how I'm going to last another two or three months like this." Eva said.

As they stepped through the door into the main room Eva gasped when she saw a Christmas tree set up in one corner and a large try of Christmas cookies and candy sitting on the table, "This is wonderful, I didn't even think you guys would know about Christmas." Eva said as she made her way over to the table."

"Well we noticed you seemed kind of depressed the last week or so and had noticed all the decorations the humans have been putting up. We did a little research and figured the reason you were upset was because you didn't think you'd get to celebrate Christmas, so we had to fix that for you." Skywarp told her.

"Thank you so much." Eva told him as tears started to run down her face.

"If you like it so much why are you crying?" Skywarp asked.

"I just miss my family, these cookies taste just like the ones my mom and I always make. I just miss her so much." Eva told him, wiping the tears from her face.

"I'm sure you'll see her again soon enough." Skywarp told her, "Now why don't you go ahead and get dressed, by the time you're done Starscream and TC should be back with your Christmas present."

"What type of present is it?" Eva asked.

"One that you'll really like." Skywarp replied.

"You're not going to give me any clues are you?" Eva asked.

"Nope." Skywarp replied.

A little while later Eva came back from getting dressed just as Thundercracker stepped into the cabin and handed Skywarp some red material that they started putting over all the windows.

"What are you guys doing?" Eva asked.

"Just taking some extra precautions, we'll explain after Starscream brings you present in." Thundercracker replied.

A moment later a large box was pushed in the door, it was about six feet tall and four feet square and barely fit through the door, then Starscream's holoform appeared and the three of them carefully slid it into the center of the room.

"That's huge, what on earth do you have in there?" Eva asked.

"Open it and find out." Starscream replied.

Eva stepped up to the box and tore the wrapping paper off of it and found that inside was a wooden box with a door on one side. She pulled the door open and gasped, staring in shock for a moment, "Mom?" she breathed barely able to believe her eyes.

"Oh my baby, I've been so worried about you." her mother, April said as she stepped out of the box and hugged her.

"I- how?" Eva managed to get out between tears and clinging to her mom.

"Well she had already been in contact with Optimus after finding that note that you left, so all we had to do was find out from them how to contact her, explain the situation to her and arrange a meeting place. Then this morning I went, packaged her up and brought her back here for the day." Starscream told her, "But, she's only being given basic information about the situation, for her own safety as well as your's she's not to be told anything we wouldn't want to risk you know who finding out. The fact that she already knows that Optimus helped us find her is more than I would have wanted her to know, but she refused to come with me until Optimus told her it was safe and true that you were here. That's also why all the windows are covered, if she were accidentally to say anything about seeing you and the other Autobots found out she can honestly tell them she has no idea where you are."

"I can't believe you did this and went through all the trouble to get her here." Eva said.

"We had to do something to cheer you up, it was getting rather boring around here with you being so quite and not arguing when Starscream tries to tell you what to do." Thundercracker told her.

"Since she knows what's going on now do you think she could be here when I have the sparkling?" Eva asked.

"Only if we've dealt with garbage disposal face before then, if we haven't it would be too dangerous to risk brining her back here again." Starscream replied.

Eva grinned, "Okay. So is that now his official name or something?" she asked.

"Well we are trying to keep the details to a minimum while your mother is here, I think it's a good nick name for him and one that you'd know exactly who I'm talking about since you came up with it." Starscream replied, "Now you two visit and enjoy yourselves, you only have a few hours, we have to have her back in time to go get together with the rest of your family so no will notice that she was missing."

"Okay, thank you guys." Eva said before their holoforms disappeared.

"Are you really alright? Optimus said you were, but are you really?" April asked.

"Yes mom, I'm fine." Eva replied.

"Why didn't you leave when the Autobots found you? You would be safer with them and maybe they could get that thing out of you."

"It's called a sparkling, it'll come out when it's ready just like a human baby and I'm perfectly safe here, maybe even safer here than I would be with the Autobots. Starscream would never let any harm come to me or the sparkling." Eva told her.

"I can't believe you trust that monster after what he did to you or would want to continue to carry the little monster he put in you." April said.

"I know it's hard to understand, I pretty much thought the same way when he first took me, but you have to step back at look at the whole picture, not just what's happening to me, but also what's happening to them and the reasons why this happened. First of all don't call my baby a monster or blame it for any of this, it had no control over being brought into existence or anything that's happened."

"You're baby? I was told it's a clone of that monster outside, it's not your's it's just been stuck inside of you to grow like some type of parasite." April argued.

"You sound just like me the first month that I was here, but you're wrong and I was too." Eva said taking her mother's hand and placing it on her stomach as the sparkling kicked, "That is an innocent, helpless baby, not a parasite, not a monster, just a baby, and I've felt it move and grow and, clone or not it's more my baby than you can possibly understand." Eva told her, wishing that she could just tell her the truth that biologically it was hers.

April looked her in the eyes for a long moment, "You really love this baby as if it were our own, don't you?" she asked.

"Yes." Eva replied.

"What happens after it's born and that robot wants to take it away from you?"

"I can't really explain right now, but everything will work out." Eva told her.

"You really think he'd let you see it again?" April asked.

"Without a doubt. I know he can seem scary and evil when you first meet him, but he's really not that bad once you get to know him." Eva told her.

"Not that bad? I can't believe you could say that after what he did to you." April said.

"I know, but what would you do if you were watching your child die and your entire race was on the verge of extinction? Wouldn't you do what ever you could to prevent that from happening?" Eva asked.

"I- I don't know." April replied.

"Exactly, there's no knowing what you would do in that situation, but Starscream was forced into that situation, he had already had to watch so many sparklings die that he couldn't take it anymore and did the only thing he could to try to prevent it from happening again and hopefully find a way to save his kind." Eva told her.

"Even under the circumstances I can't believe you're so quick to defend him." April said.

"I know, I spent the first month or so constantly insulting him, throwing up on him and superglueing glitter and feathers to him, but somehow over the time I've been here they've all three sort of become like family to me."

"You did all that to a giant robot who could have crushed you?" April asked.

"Sure, I hated him and knew he would never do anything to hurt me because of the sparkling, even now that I don't hate him Skywarp will still bring me stuff to glue onto him when I'm bored or just getting tired of the side effects of being pregnant." Eva said as she grabbed her camera, "These aren't as good as the first time, by the time Warp brought me the camera I was no longer able to climb up onto him." Eva told her as she started to show her the pictures.

After a couple hours of talking and catching up Starscream's holoform walked into the cabin, "It's time to go." he told them.

"Are you sure she can't stay a little longer?" Eva asked.

"No, she can't be late to meet with the rest of your family or it could raise questions that she wouldn't be able to answer which would just make them suspicious." Starscream replied, "You'll get to see her again as soon we have things taken care of."

"Alright." Eva relented.

After a tearful goodbye Starscream took April home and Eva just sat staring at the Christmas tree for a while until Skywarp and Thundercracker came in.

"Okay, stop looking so depressed, at least you got to see her and you'll see her again as soon as we get rid of Megatron. Right now though all we're going to be thinking about are these." Skywarp said holding up a small box.

"What's in it?" Eva asked.

"DVDs, you're mom brought them for you, she said they're some of your favorite Christmas movies." Thundercracker replied.

"Great, let's go watch them." Eva said as she got up and they all headed into the entertainment room, "So, who's idea was it to do all of this and bring my mom out here?" she asked as she sat down on the couch.

"We were given strict instructions to say it was my idea." Skywarp said, then added, "Because Starscream doesn't want you to think he's going too soft."

"It's too late for that, he totally blew the mean, tough guy image the first morning I woke up and found him asleep with Skydancer." Eva told him, "Speaking of her someone should go get her out of her playpen before she figures out how to break out on her own, she can't be too happy about being stuck in there for so long."

"I'll get her." Skywarp said before jumping up and a leaving the room.

A little while later he came back with Skydancer in his arms, as soon as she saw Eva she started to reach for her, "How's my pretty girl?" Eva asked as Skywarp handed her to her.

"You know you probably shouldn't get too attached to her, once the Autobots find out about her they'll probably want to keep her with them." Thundercracker told her.

"It's a little late for that and I have no intention of letting them take her, she's staying with me and if they do try to take her they'll regret it." Eva replied.

"I think we've let you get away with far too much, just because we let you get with almost anything doesn't mean the Autobots will too." Thundercracker told her.

"But I have you guys to back me up and you're the ones who saved her, it was the Autobot's fault that she ended up with us in the first place. Anyways all I have to do is convince them of the same thing I told Starscream, she'll be safer with me until we know if all the Decepticons will go along with the truce. The Autobots or you guys could be attacked by anyone who doesn't want peace or Starscream to lead, which would put her in danger, but no one would be attacking the farm so she would be perfectly safe there." Eva said.

"You're good." Skywarp told her.

"Yes, she thinks like I do, very cunning and able to twist anything to get what she wants." Starscream said as he walked into the room.

"It's just the truth." Eva said.

"Yes, you just left out the fact that if any of the Decepticons won't follow me they could try to kidnap her and raise her to join them." Starscream pointed out.

"That's only if the other Decepticons find out about her, which we won't let happen and if they don't know about her, she'll be safe with me. We just put up a signal blocker so no one notices her from a distance and I doubt any Decepticons would have reason to be out in the middle of no where." Eva said

"True."

"Now, we were just about to watch some movies, come join us." Eva told him.

"I have some things I need to get done." Starscream told her.

"It's Christmas, you can take the day off." Eva told him, then turning Skydancer so she was facing Starscream she said, "Look who's here honey."

Skydancer immediately started reaching for Starscream, "Fine, maybe one movie." Starscream said as he took her and sat down next to Eva.


	21. Chapter 21

The next month dragged by slowly for Eva as the weather got colder and she was allowed out less and less. Skydancer had remained a secret from the Autobots since they would most likely want to take her back to their base where it was probably safer, but none of them could bear the thought of her not being around. They had agreed that the Autobots would remain unaware of her until after the sparkling was born, then they would be told when Eva and both sparklings would be moved to the Autobot's base until Megatron was dead.

"Warp, what do I do? I can barely move, I've watched every movie I have here too many times to count and I'm going to go crazy from boredom long before the sparkling is born." Eva complained from where she was sitting on the couch with Skydancer sleeping against her side.

"Well I have an idea, but Starscream won't like it." Skywarp replied.

"He's the one responsible for me being stuck here and bored, I don't care what he thinks as long as I have a distraction from the fact that I look like I swallowed a giant beach ball and can barely move." Eva replied.

"You're not really quite that big, but good point. I found where Starscream hid the paint ball gun and about a dozen paint balls that were left over. We could open the window just far enough for you to get the gun through it without completely chilling the cabin and you could see how good your aim is from a distance." Skywarp told her.

"That sounds perfect." Eva said.

"I'll be right back." Skywarp said before his holoform disappeared.

A little while later he came into the cabin carrying the gun and paint balls, "Maybe I should go get some more paint balls, do you need any food or anything that I can try to use as an excuse for leaving?" he asked.

"I think I'm almost out of bread and will need more milk by tomorrow." Eva replied as she set Skydancer in her playpen.

"Perfect, nice soft bread that TC wouldn't be able to get along with the supplies he's already after. I'll tell Starscream I'm leaving to get that stuff for you and that he should stay near the cabin incase you need him. That should put him close enough for you to get some good shots, just hide the gun quick after a few shots so he can't take it away from you and hide it again." Skywarp told her.

"Okay." Eva replied as she slipped on her coat then pulled one of the kitchen chairs over to the window and loaded the gun.

She watched as Skywarp talked to Starscream for a moment then left and Starscream moved to work on the closest of another set of solar panels that would be attached to a second energon generator.

Silently cracking the window open Eva took aim and fired, splattering bright orange paint all over the back of one of Starscream's wings.

Starscream stopped what he was doing and glanced up at the snow covered branches of a tree he was standing near then went back to work.

"Just keep on believing it's just snow falling." Eva said as she quickly fired off two more shots, hitting his back with both of them.

Again he seemed to think it was just snow falling out of the tree and went back to his work. The fourth shot went a little high, hitting the top back of his head, this time he raised his hand and looked at the splatter of paint drops that had shot around his head then spun around to look at the cabin.

Eva quickly slid the gun into a cupboard and barely made it back to her seat before Starscream's holoform appeared, "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

"Whatever are you talking?" Eva asked innocently.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, you were shooting me with paint balls again." Starscream said.

"I'm bored, I needed something to do and I thought a little target practice might be a good idea, you never know when I might need to shoot someone." Eva replied.

"The only person you might need to be shooting at wouldn't be affected much by most human guns." he pointed out.

"Okay, fine, I was just plain bored." Eva told him.

"And you never tire of torturing me?"

"Nope, not as long as you're responsible for my suffering." Eva replied.

"So after the sparkling is born you'll stop harassing me?" Starscream asked.

"Maybe." Eva replied smiling at him until she heard a jet approaching, "Is Thundercracker back already? It hasn't been long enough for Warp to be back yet." she said.

"Stay here." Starscream told her, a seriousness in his voice that left no room for question and little doubt about who it was, then he disappeared.

Eva watched nervously as Starscream talked to Megatron, only able to hear occasional words, but not enough to be sure what was being said. After what seemed like forever Megatron looked towards the cabin and a moment later turned angrily towards Starscream, "It's part organic, you've been wasting time keeping that abomination alive while you and the other two could have been fighting with the others?" she could hear Megatron yell before he backhanded Starscream across the face hard enough to knock him to the ground, "This stupidity ends now." Megatron said before starting to head towards the cabin.

Eva was debating what to do when Starscream got up, "You're right, it's time to end this stupidity." he said as his hand transformed into a large canon and he fired it straight into Megatron's back.

Megatron let out a roar of pain and turned on Starscream, his hand being replaced by a large blade as he lunged at Starscream. He was clearly shocked when Starscream's canon was replaced by a blade and he easily blocked Megatron's attack. The blade was one of the weapon upgrades that the Autobots had given Starscream and he had quickly become skilled at fighting with it, fighting to a draw several times and even beating Optimus twice during their training.

They continued to fight for nearly fifteen minutes and seemed to be evenly matched. At least until Megatron blocked one Starscream's blows and with the gun on the other arm fired a shot at the cabin. Luckily he missed although the shot hit close enough to shatter the windows on the side of the cabin where it had hit, but it was enough to distract Starscream for a split second and Megatron used that to his advantage. He managed to knock Starscream to the ground and pinned him down with one foot while aiming his gun right at Starscream's spark.

Eva raced to the kitchen and grabbed the paint ball gun then ran outside, she knew she didn't stand a chance against Megatron, but she couldn't just sit there and do nothing, running away wouldn't do her any good, he'd find her and kill her one way or another and if she was going to die she was going to go down fighting.

"Before you die you should know I'm going to kill that abomination of yours and I'll do it nice and slowly so it and the human suffer." Megatron was telling Starscream.

"Hey, Megaugly." Eva yelled as she aimed the gun.

As soon as Megatron turned towards her she quickly fired the last several paint balls at his face, enough of them hitting his optics to temporarily blind him and Starscream quickly knocked him down.

"Pin him down." Eva said as she ran as quickly as she could manage towards him, stumbling slightly as she felt the sparkling make a sudden strong movement that sent pain through her whole stomach, but she ignored the pain and forced herself to keep moving.

"Get back inside." Starscream told her even as he did pin Megatron down.

"No, just trust me, I know what I'm doing." Eva replied as she reached them and dodging Megatron's thrashing hand ran right up to where Starscream was trying to keep his arms pinned down.

"Eva you've got to get out of here, I can't hold him much longer." Starscream told her.

"Don't move." she told him as she opened the vile Ratchet had given her, popped out the needle and reached it through Megatron's armor. She gasped as he tried to move and a sharp edge of armor cut into the back of her arm, but she didn't pay any attention to it as she forced the needle into the wires under the armor. A second later Megatron let out a deafening roar of agony, Eva quickly backed away as he began thrashing around even more.

"Let him go before he hurts you, he's not going anywhere." Eva told Starscream.

Starscream did as she told him and picked her up, "What was that?" Starscream asked.

"A little gift from Ratchet, he said it should kill him within a minute." Eva told him.

"I'll kill you both." Megatron yelled although he was still writhing around in too much pain to actually do anything.

"How does it feel lord Megatron to know that twice, you've been killed by a species you think are so useless and a waste of space?" Starscream asked.

Megatron glared at them, but before he could reply his optics flickered then went out.

Starscream stepped forward and aimed his canon straight at Megatron's spark chamber, "Cover you're ears." he instructed and Eva did so, then he fired two shots leaving a gaping hole where Megatron's spark had been.

"You know he was already dead." Eva said.

"I also know he's been dead before and come back, I just wanted to be sure." Starscream told her.

"Okay, good point." Eva said then flinched as the pain suddenly got worse.

"Are you alright?" Starscream asked.

"I don't know, the sparkling did something weird when I was running out here and I think my water broke." Eva replied.

"Do you think you'll be alright if I fly you to Ratchet or should I radio Skywarp and have him bring him here?" Starscream asked.

"Ratchet said he had to go back to the Autobot's main base for a couple of days, he would have to drive part way here before he'd be close enough for Warp to bring him and I'm in a lot of pain and just don't feel right, so let's just head there now, it'll be faster." Eva replied.

"Alright." Starscream said setting her down then he hesitated a moment staring at his hand.

"What's wrong." Eva asked.

"We've got to get you to Ratchet now, this isn't just from your water breaking." he said sounding terrified as he showed her his hand that was covered in blood then transformed, his holoform appeared and helped her into the cockpit.

"What about Skydancer?" Eva asked.

"I've already radioed Thundercracker to come pick her up then he and Skywarp will meet us at the Autobot base." Starscream replied then quickly transformed, his holoform appearing next to Eva to help her in.

"Will you stop that, it hurts." Starscream said a few minutes later as Eva gripped the seat on either side of her in a death grip.

"Sure, if you'll make the contractions and pain stop." Eva replied after the contraction had passed.

"Well try to give me some warning next time." Starscream told her.

"Do you think the sparkling is going to be okay?" Eva asked.

"It should be, it transformed, that's what you felt when it moved, it means it was preparing to be born." Starscream told her.

"What did it transform into?" Eva asked.

"Sort of a meteor or teardrop shape, it makes it easier to give birth to." Starscream told her.

"Okay, any idea why there's so much blood?" Eva asked.

"No, not that I can say for sure, it's probably nothing more than a minor cut from when it transformed." Starscream replied although he sounded unsure and worried.

"Starscream, if I don't survive this-"

"Don't, don't you dare give up on me, you're too strong for that. You're going to be just fine, the sparkling needs you too much, you have to be alright." Starscream told her his voice sounding as if he was struggling to not start panicking which did little to reassure Eva of her chances of surviving.

* * *

Just because I'm a review addict, if I get at least 10 reviews on this chapter I'll go ahead and post the next chapter as soon as I get that many instead of waiting until next weekend, with well over two hundred people reading this story I don't think that's too much to ask, is it?


	22. Chapter 22

Wow, 13 reviews in less than 8 hours, thank you so much everyone, I really appreciate it.

* * *

Half an hour later they finally landed at the Autobot's base and Ratchet ran out to meet them, quickly helping Eva out he began running scans on her as he carried her into the base with Starscream right behind him.

"Send a few bots out to the lake to get Megatron's body, I want it melted down, split up into tiny pieces and spread out over as great a distance as possible, I don't want any chance of him coming back to life again." Starscream said as they passed Optimus.

"You actually managed to killed Megatron?" Ratchet asked.

"Eva killed him, I just held him down." Starscream replied.

"That stuff you gave me worked really well." Eva told Ratchet before suddenly gasping as another contraction hit.

They stepped into the med bay and Ratchet set her down in a corner that was set up with human sized medical equipment. A second later Ratchet and Starscream's holoforms appeared next to her.

"So what's going on, why is there so much blood? Is the sparkling going to be okay?" Eva asked.

"The sparkling looks like it should be fine, although we still won't be completely sure until we can see how it's body reacts after being born." Ratchet told her.

"What about Eva, what's wrong with her, why is there so much blood, is she going to be alright." Starscream asked trying desperately not to sound worried, but failing.

"When the sparkling transformed it caused some internal damage, cutting through her uterus and into some of her organs. I- I really can't say for sure, there's a lot of damage." Ratchet told him, "Wait, the nanites, can you remotely reprogram the nanites that made the alterations for her to carry the sparkling?" Ratchet asked.

"Yes." Starscream replied.

"That may just give her chance of making it through this, I'll data burst you the detailed scans along with the repairs that need to be made and which ones need to be repaired fist." Ratchet told him then jumped slightly as Eva grabbed his and squeezed it as another contraction hit.

"How much longer until we get this thing out of me?" she demanded.

"Just hang in there, we'll get the sparkling out as quickly as possible." Ratchet told her as he pried his hand out of her grip, "Starscream, as soon as you're done reprogramming the nanites switch to a human holoform and try to keep her as calm as possible." Ratchet told him.

"Why?" Starscream asked.

"This is a delicate situation, I wouldn't want you accidentally hurting her with all that metal." Ratchet replied.

"Alright." Starscream relented, his holoform changing a moment later, he wore black jeans, a red button front shirt, had short brown hair and was rather handsome.

"I can't see why you never used a human holoform before, you look pretty good as a human." Eva told him then gasped as another contraction hit and she grabbed his hand, squeezing it hard enough to make him flinch, "I hate you." she told him through clenched teeth.

"What did I do now?" Starscream asked.

"I'm pregnant and in excruciating pain because of you, I didn't even get the pleasure of making love to get pregnant, I just got pain and torture, I'm going to kill you when this is over." Eva told him.

"Would it make you feel better if I promise to make love to you when this is all over?" Starscream asked.

Eva looked at Starscream, too shocked to react for a second then finally said, "You'd have to marry me first."

"Well my mother always said for a mech to be a truly good leader he needs a good femme at his side, and my father always agreed with her. It's not very likely I'll ever find a worthy woman among my own kind since there are so few left so I believe you would be a logical choice for a spouse." Starscream replied.

Eva let go Starscream's hand, "Oh so I'm just a logical choice?" she demanded then grabbed his hand back when another contraction started, "You are such a jerk."

"Fine, since you seem determined to ruin my reputation, you want the truth, I'll give you the truth." Starscream said then looked at Ratchet, "If you ever mention this to anyone I'll rip you're spark out." he said then turned back to Eva, "I think you are the most stubborn, annoying pain in the aft ever to exist, you're also brave, cunning, strong willed, brilliant, caring, most wonderful woman I have ever met. I love you and can't bear the thought of not having you around." Starscream told her.

Eva grinned, "I love you too." she said before grabbing the front of his shirt, pulling his face down to hers and kissing him for a long moment until she suddenly pulled back, twisting her hand tightly into his shirt as she yelled, "I'm never letting you touch me again!"

As the pain passed Eva noticed that Ratchet was chuckling, she was about to demand to know what was so funny when she realized he was staring at Starscream who had a completely bewildered look on his face.

"Stop laughing at me, I can't shoot you, I need you alive." Starscream said then asked, "Do the mood swings come back during labor?"

"It's just the pain and it will probably get worse." Ratchet told him, "Now, it's time to push." he told Eva.

Over the next several minutes Starscream found out that Eva knew more human and Cybertronian curses than he had imagined possible and that she had a deadly grip that if he had really been human probably would have left his hand badly bruised if not broken.

Once the sparkling was born Ratchet passed it to Starscream who held it where Eva could see it. Eva raised an eye brow and said, "It's a big chunk of metal?"

Starscream gently touched a section of the metal and it transformed into a small robot which Starscream then placed in her arms. It was basically human in shape, with smooth gray metal covering most of it's body except for around the joints where the metal separated enough to allow movement.

"Oh he's so precious." Eva said as he wrapped one small hand around her finger.

"Yes, he is, he's perfect." Starscream agreed then asked, "So now that most of the pain is over do you love me or hate me?"

"Well, I'm not sure, I think I love you, then again it could just be Stockholm syndrome." Eva told him then smiled, "But I'm pretty sure I'm just plain in love with you."

"Perhaps a proper courtship would help you figure it out for sure." Starscream said.

Eva grinned at him, "I think that sounds like a wonderful idea." she said.

"Sounds good to me too, it's about time you two admitted you liked each other." Skywarp said as his holoform appeared next to Eva's bed.

"How are you two doing?" Thundercracker asked as his holoform appeared next to Skywarp's.

"Okay I think, I feel really tired and sore, and he's still alive, that's got to be a good sign, right?" Eva asked.

"Yes, it appears he's going to be just fine, and you're healing well, but you have been through a lot, lost a lot of blood and should get some rest." Ratchet told her.

"I guess you're right, I do feel about ready to pass out." Eva admitted, "You'll keep him in here with me while I sleep though, won't you?"

"Of course." Ratchet replied.

"Don't worry, he'll be right here when you wake up, I wouldn't even try to take him after watching you take down Megatron." Starscream told her.

"She took out Megatron?" Skywarp and Thundercracker both asked.

"Yes, I'll tell you about it on our way to tell the others that Megatron is dead." Starscream told them.

"What are you going to tell them?" Eva asked.

"That I killed him, there will be a few who aren't happy about it, but as long as they think I'm powerful enough to have killed him they won't be very likely to want to risk challenging me." Starscream told her.

"Be careful." Eva told him, "And you two don't let anyone hurt him." she told Skywarp and Thundercracker.

"Don't worry, we'll take good care him." Thundercracker assured her.

"Now, get some rest." Starscream told her kissing her forehead before his holoform disappeared.

"Wow, you really are going soft and I mean really, really soft." Skywarp said.

"Don't make me hurt you or better yet I just won't let you hold my sparkling." Starscream told him.

"Okay, you're not soft, you're evil." Skywarp replied as they walked out of the room.

"Now get some sleep, if you need anything this radio will give you a direct link to my comlink if I'm not here when you wake up." Ratchet told Eva as he set a radio on the bed next to her.

"Okay." Eva replied, already starting to doze off.


	23. Chapter 23

Sorry about taking so long to get this up and for not replying to everyone who asked if there would be another chapter. Life has been crazy between writers block, national novel writing month, wrote just over 50,000 on one of my original stories in November, getting Christmas presents made and everything else ready for Christmas and my mom's health problems have been getting worse meaning more work to take care of her and she's been in the hospital a couple of times.

* * *

The next day Eva had just laid the sparkling in his crib when Starscream's holoform walked into the room carrying a large bouquet of roses.

"So how did things go?" Eva asked, smiling as he handed her the roses.

"As I expected there were a few who were upset that Megatron is dead, but no one challenged me for leadership of the Decepticons. Even fewer objected when I said I wanted a truce with the Autobots until our race is no longer on the verge of extinction." Starscream told her.

"And once you're no longer on the verge of extinction?" Eva asked.

"Hopefully by then Autobots and Decepticons will have learned to live in peace or at least tolerate each other enough to avoid war and the new generation will never have to experience the war." Starscream said, as he picked up the sparkling, "Now on to more important matters, he still needs a name."

"I was thinking about Abraham, after my great grandfather." Eva said.

"It's customary for humans to have a first and middle name, isn't it?" Starscream asked.

"Yes." Eva replied.

"Abraham Darkwing, in honor of your great grandfather and my father." Starscream suggested.

"That would be perfect." Eva said.

Over the next several weeks the terms of the truce were worked out while Eva moved back to her farm and introduced her immediate family to her son and new boyfriend. An airplane hanger was built on the property that was just big enough to hold three jets with living quarters underneath it where Starscream and his brothers stayed when they weren't away with the other Decepticons or using their holoforms to help Eva with Abraham and other work around the farm.

* * *

I'm sorry there isn't more to this chapter, I was just having a hard time coming up with any more for it and finally gave up. The main story is now finished, but I plan to continue it in one or two shot stories about Starscream and Eva's courtship and about Abraham that I'll post as I come up with them. I'll just post them as additional chapters on this story that way you can just leave this story on your alert list instead of having to constantly check back to see if I've added any new stories. I already have the first one shot about Abraham pretty well done and should be posting it fairly soon. If anyone has any suggestions of what they would like to see in the one shots let me know, I don't have too many ideas right now.


	24. Abraham age 7

Here's a little one shot I wrote a while back for a contest on Deviantart. Abraham is about seven.

As I post the one shots I'll title them with Abraham's age that way if I do any of when he's younger they can be read in order.

* * *

"This is so boring, why couldn't we just stay at home?" Abraham whined as he paced around an abandoned looking air field.

"Because dear nephew, your parents don't trust me to keep you out of trouble if we're more than half a mile away from them," Skywarp replied.

"They don't trust you, so I have to suffer for it?" Abraham asked kicking a pebble across the pavement.

"Not at all, we can have more fun here than we could ever have had at home," Skywarp replied as he pulled a couple of garbage bags full of stuff out of his cockpit then turned on his holoform.

"What are we going to do with all this stuff?" Abraham asked as he pulled a can of spray paint out of one of the bags.

"We're going to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to express our artistic skills," Skywarp replied.

"What are we going to paint? All there is out here are runways and the building everyone is in," Abraham pointed out.

"Look harder, you're missing the most entertaining canvas of all," Skywarp replied.

"The only other thing out here is everyone's bodies," Abraham said.

"Exactly! And as long as everyone is using their holoforms inside to talk to the humans, they won't feel a thing we do to their bodies out here," Skywarp told him.

"Really? Are you sure?" Abraham asked.

"Trust me, your mother did this to your father and uncle TC." Skywarp said.

"I don't remember ever hearing about that," Abraham said.

"That's because it was nearly eight years ago, before you were born and I don't think they wanted you getting any ideas," Skywarp replied.

"Okay. Who are we going to decorate?" Abraham asked, pulling some super glue, glitter and multi colored feathers out of a bag.

"Hmm, well your dad and uncle would probably kill me for decorating them, so we'll save them for last. Optimus would probably be a big softy and forgive us way too fast for it to be entertaining. That leaves us with Ironhide and Ratchet. Which one do you think should be our first victim?"

Abraham grinned as he dumped out the last bag which was full of fake flowers and lacy sheer material, "Let's get Ironhide."

Half an hour later most of Ironhide's armor had been painted a brilliant shade of florescent pink and sprinkled with pink and gold glitter. Glued around his head was a crown of pink roses, with different colored rings of flowers around each of his fingers and bracelets of glued on flowers around both wrists and ankles. A somewhat uneven tutu of pink material was glued around his waist and on his back, was painted a large target, above it, written in glue and gold glitter was, 'Shoot me'.

"What should we do to Ratchet?" Skywarp asked as they stood back to admire their work for a moment, "He might be a bit harder, since he's in vehicle mode."

"No, that will make it more fun," Abraham replied, "I know just what to do with him," he said with an evil grin as he grabbed two cans of black spray paint and tossed one to Skywarp.

When they finished, Ratchet had been painted entirely black with 'The Evil Dr. Death' written on the sides in red paint. Along the bottom of all the doors was red and blue paint, made to look as if blood and energon was dripping out. Painted on the windows were humans and transformers, with horrible injuries, looking as if they were trying to escape. On the window next to one of the humans, written in red paint was, 'Help me' on another window next to a transformer, written in blue paint was 'Beware the Hatchet'.

"You are a truly amazing artist for your age." Skywarp said as they walked around Ratchet looking at their work.

"I know," Abraham replied cockily as he sprayed some red paint on his hand and added a few bloody looking handprints to the windows.

"Now on to uncle Thundercracker," Abraham said as he rummaged through the bags and pulled out more flowers and glue.

A short while later Thundercracker had rings of flowers glued around the top of his head, neck and wrists, with a ring of grass, gathered from around the over grown base, around his waist. "What do you think?" Abraham asked stepping back to admire his work.

Skywarp turned off his holoform, "There's just one thing missing, or more accurately two things." he replied as he walked over to a large dead tree at the edge of the parking lot, cut off the top then cut off two sections of the trunk. Using his lazar he quickly carved them down until they looked like giant coconut shells, then attaching some chain to them that he found nearby, he tied them over Thundercracker's chest.

"Now, that is perfection. Then again, anything we create together usually is perfect, isn't it?" Skywarp asked.

"Yep, we're always perfect together," Abraham replied, then turned to look at Starscream, an evil grin spreading across his face that could have made even Ironhide fearful, "Now on to dad," he said grabbing the bags of supplies to see what was left.

"Maybe you shouldn't, if we do him up too, who will protect us from the others?" Skywarp asked.

"Don't worry about that, a few extra artistic touches and I'll have him wrapped around my little finger as soon as he sees it," Abraham replied confidently as he pulled out a can of spray paint.

"You are a genius, you're absolutely right, he'll be so wrapped around your little finger he won't care about any of this," Skywarp said as he held Abraham up to finish painting on Starscream's wing.

"I know, it's a gift. I know exactly what I can get away with, what I can't get away with and how to butter dad up so well that I can get away with anything," Abraham replied as he finished then sat back to make sure everything was just right.

Starscream had flowers glued randomly all over his body along with glitter hearts, flowers and butterflies. Super glued to the top of his head was a ring of old pop cans, looking like some type of odd crown. On one wing was written 'All hail king Starscream, best dad in the world' written on the other wing was, 'I love daddy' with hearts painted around it.

"Just one left to go, what should we do to Optimus?" Skywarp asked.

"Umm… well we don't really have enough of anything left to do something really creative," Abraham said looking at the remaining supplies.

"Well that's good, because I had special plans for Optimus, he's hard, because he already has such a cool paint job," Skywarp told him as he pulled another bag out of his cockpit.

"What's in there?" Abraham asked as he tried to jump up where he could see in the bag.

Skywarp walked over next to Optimus then dumped the bag on the ground. Hundreds of large crafting jewels poured out, most in red and blue, "Oh this is going to be awesome," Abraham declared as he grabbed some glue and a handful of gems.

Just as the base door opened Abraham placed the last gem, leaving every inch of Optimus' flamed paint job coated with gems.

Everyone in the doorway froze at the colorful sight they were met with, after a moment most of the humans all burst out laughing and even the most stern of the human generals were struggling to keep from smiling.

"I'm so glad you brought me along, this has been such a fun day!" Abraham said, running over to hug Starscream's holoform.


End file.
